


Bolder Behind the Screen

by TwilightRealmWolf



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry It's Another Chapter Fic, Light Angst, Online Chatroom, Prompt Fill, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-02-08 09:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 29,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1936302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwilightRealmWolf/pseuds/TwilightRealmWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: What about a reader/ray where you meet anonymously though like a chat room and the reader is a huge rooster teeth fan and slowly starts to realize it's Ray?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MofetteMofo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MofetteMofo/gifts).



> Alright, so I finally got around to filling a prompt request to celebrate 100 kudos on Little Obsessions! Woo! So, a few things...  
> This is a chapter fic and I'm so sorry. The main reason that it is a chapter fic is because I didn't want to go over a month without updating while I tried to fill this. This won't be as huge as Little Obsessions in any way, I just wanted some filler.  
> I start the final chapter of Little Obsessions tomorrow night!  
> \--------------------------------------------------------------  
> This was a prompt fill by Ao3 user MofetteMofo

You throw your pencil down in utter frustration and wipe both hands roughly over your face, a loud groan of anger slipping from your lips. In front of you laid an open math textbook and a piece of loose leaf notebook paper with countless eraser shavings, doodles and scribbles of frustration on it’s surface, along with a miniscule amount of the actual assignment on it. You had been trying for nearly three hours at this point, and it was starting to become ridiculous. You knew that waiting until the very last moment to start the assignment was a stupid idea in itself, and never asking for help wasn’t the brightest idea either, but you hadn’t seen the harm in it at the time. Though, as you were staring down the book with your pain-filled head in your hands, you now knew that it was in fact a bad idea.

Leaning back in your chair, you look around the room, eyes skimming over every object they came across. You knew in the back of your mind that you really should get the assignment done, but you just felt like you couldn’t. At first you had been able to keep yourself focused, but now you couldn’t even keep yourself focused on scribbling on the paper. You sigh deeply, thinking of all the consequences of not doing it before tomorrow’s class would be as you grab your computer and drag yourself over to your bed, plopping down onto the soft surface and turning on the device. Once it was on and online, you opened up tumblr and scrolled aimlessly for awhile, attempting to block out the pain radiating through every throb in your head. After what had only seemed like minutes, but had actually been hours (two and a half, to be exact), you decided to attempt to message some of your friends before dragging yourself towards the shower. You sent off messages to two of your friends and waited for a response while munching on the first thing you had grabbed from your pantry. The inventory was surprisingly low in the pantry, so you noted that you would need to go to the grocery store at some point.

Once you had finished your late night snack, you flicked open your phone once again to check for messages. Sure, the phone hadn’t vibrated or sounded at all in the last 20 minutes you had been waiting, but you looked anyway, seemingly desperate for company.

As you had expected, there were no new messages there. Though, instead of turning the device off you scanned the last messages both of them had sent before the message you had sent today.

They were your best friends and had been since the beginning of your first year of middle school. They had been there when no one else had been. When your mom had yelled at you and forced you to the brink of tears, they were there. When your dad had become so disappointed in you and had forced you out, they were there. They had been there through all the tough times, and you had done the same for them.

Although, once college had come around, they hadn’t been around as much anymore.

It wasn’t distance that separated you, due to the fact that they went to the exact same school as you did. Sure, they were different majors than you, but they were still around. They’d promised you that they’d never leave your side, and you told them the same.

You never broke promises.

Though, as you sat and stared at the time stamp of the last message they’d both ever sent you, tears fell freely from your eyes as the realization hit you.

Even though you hadn’t ever broken the promise,

They had.

The last messages the both of them had sent you were only a mere two days apart, but those two days had been nearly six months ago. Of course, you had tried to message them both since, but they had never replied. So there the messages sat, collecting metaphorical dust as time went by.

Why promise if you haven't the strength to keep it?

With one last glance at the glowing screen you shut your eyes tightly before turning off the device and chucking it straight at the wall on the opposite side of the room. You stood up slowly and trudged over to the bathroom, squinting your eyes tightly at the sudden harshness of the fluorescent lighting and flipping on the shower in one quick movement.

You stripped down quickly before stepping into the nice and steamy box, smiling slightly as you felt the warm water run down your back. One of the best parts of living alone that you had always loved the most was not having to worry about waking people up whenever you decided to take showers at one in the morning like you often did. If you ever decided to actually get a roommate, that would definitely be on the top of the “requirements” list. Though, you didn’t see that happening any time soon. You were very picky when it came to people living with you, and you had never really asked anyone to move in with you before. Maybe someday.

After twenty minutes spent in the shower (and in which only five minutes were actually used washing), you reluctantly grasped the handle and twirled it around to be ‘off’, shuddering as the sudden coolness of the air touches your skin. You quickly dry off, dressing into your warm cozy pyjamas and head off back towards the bedroom. Even though you were now more alert, you still didn’t feel like you could make yourself finish the assignment that was strewn all over your desk, so you just settled on opening up your computer and typing in the web address of a chat room that you had joined only a month prior.

You had heard of the website one very late night while on tumblr looking for things to do that would help to soothe your boredom. Once you had seen all of the positive comments and stories about people meeting their most awesome friends and fellow nerdy fans, you had figured “why the hell not” and had quickly joined, making up a username to do with one of your favorite members of Achievement Hunters: Ray. Once in, your eyes had widened in surprise of all the positive conversations going on in different chat rooms and how such a large amount of fans could all hold one conversation without all screaming at eachother. You had to admit, it was a very nice difference from the horrid YouTube comments section. In your own opinion, some words were definitely off limits, and you had seen that none of those people had limits. At all.

Now, you were curled up underneath your covers with a smile plastered on your face, excited to engage in the conversation that was the newest Let’s Play as of yet.

The _ding_ of the influx of messages filled your room, and you watched as some familiar names scroll by as the conversation roared on, laughter and fondness seeping from the written words. It was a great environment, and a very much accepted change for you to your normal life. Here, no one made fun of anyone or took them for granted, which was the best change from what you were used to. Here you didn’t have to stare abandonment issues and worries in the face.

No faces, just screen names.

As you began to type in to join the conversation, you saw many familiar names all surrounding one that hadn’t captured your eye before. You of all people would have known that name by heart by now, considering your knowledge of the show and where the name originated from.

**Wade** : Hey there, I’m kinda new to this sorta thing, what even goes on around here?

You watched as the chat exploded into a different topic entirely all revolving around Strangerhood references. Though, as you watched, you noticed that no one was really answering the new persons questions. Normally, you would never take it upon yourself entirely to show anyone the ropes by yourself but, hey, what’s the worst that could happen.

**You** : Hey there Wade, how about I show you around here? I mean, if you’re okay with listening to a random nerd talk for a long period of time.

**Wade** : Sure, why not, we’re all friends here right? That’s what this is for? Yeah.

You smile slightly, placing your computer off to the side of you while you readjust your position to something more cozy. Once there, you picked back up your laptop and stretched your fingers, ready to type.

It’ll be a long night.


	2. College and Trees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! I really am :c
> 
> In other news, this is doing really well, oh my.  
> Thanks for reading!

The next morning was crazy to say the least. Firstly, you had forgotten to set the alarm to tell you when to wake up to finish your homework. Secondly, you woke up on your bed with your now dead laptop on your stomach, which was a problem in more ways than just one. Though, that ceased to be the worst of it.

You sat up and stretched, swearing under your breath as your back and neck popped when you did so. You rubbed your eyes gingerly with the sides of your now balled up fists, blinking several times after your vision had gone blurry. You glanced around, attempting to look for your phone, but the digital clock on your dresser caught your eye instead. At first you saw the time and shrugged, but quickly did a double take faster than your neck could possibly move.

It was two minutes until class, and _that_ was the worst of it.

You threw off your covers at nearly the speed of light, discarding them off to the other side of the bed as you flew towards the bathroom. “Fuck!” You yelled as you flipped on the sink, seeing as if you only had enough time to brush your teeth before running your ass off to the campus. To you, that was the only visible downside to not living in a dorm. The campus wasn’t just a short walk away, as your apartment was on the outskirts of the college town itself. Granted, it was only about a ten minute walk away, but it was still far. You were still in the town, sure, but not close like the dorms were. Plus, not having a car was another absolutely stellar part of living far away, total sarcasm intended.

You spit furiously into the sink, not bothering to run the foam down the drain before tearing out of the bathroom. Quickly, you shoved everything from your desk into the blue bag you used frequently for what seemed like everything. Then you shoved your laptop in, hoping to find a power outlet you could use to charge your computer at some point during the lecture. That was, if your professor didn’t totally kick you out entirely. Sure, he was a douche, but surely he wasn’t _that_ big of a douche, right?

You slipped on a pair of black checkered Vans quickly before hitting the ground running. Your feet furiously pounded the pavement, a sharp sting flying up your legs every time one of your feet struck asphalt. Luckily there was little to no traffic, so you could just run across streets, but at this rate you were still going to be ten minutes late at the least. Once the building came into view, you sighed a sigh of relief, but still kept running, not even slowing down as you threw open the doors. You saw as some of the students looked at you from their spots that they sat in beside classroom doors, but they said nothing. It was like an unspoken rule around here, no one could judge anyone else for hauling ass to class. Hell, everyone’s had to to do it at least once.

You stopped abruptly as you reached the classroom door, attempting to catch your breath and to pull yourself together. You combed through your messy bed head with your fingers, trying to make it seem like you hadn’t just woken up, but it wasn’t an astounding success. After thirty seconds of feeling up your hair with your hands, you placed a shaky hand on the door handle to the auditorium-sized classroom. You counted down from three under your breath, and at ‘one’ you turned the door handle quietly, hoping that no one would notice as you snuck in.

Stepping in on quiet feet, you turned around to shut the door behind you, extremely grateful that no one had been looking. Then you turned around…

_Great._

Everyone was now staring at you, including the professor, who had stopped in the middle of his lecture to turn and stare at you. You stayed there for a moment, completely still, feeling your cheeks begin to burn hotter and hotter as the seconds passed. Eventually, the professor cleared his throat, and put on a smile.

“Oh, why how nice of you to join us Miss (last/n). I am very sorry that you were late.”

You heard stifled giggles coming from someone on the elevated seats, but you didn’t care, as shock from your professor being nice overtook your embarrassment.

“Uh,” You begin to say, stopping to clear your throat as you voice began to crack, “I am sorry too professor, I did not mean to be late.”

“Yes, I highly doubt you did.” He says with a smile, turning away from you in order to look at the rest of the class ahead of him. You stood frozen in confusion, unsure if that meant that you could go back to your seat, or if you should stay put.

“Uhm, sir? Could I go sit down now?” You squeak out nervously, the anxiety returning back to you in tidal waves.

“No.”

“Oh, alright-”

“I would like you to turn around, and walk right through that door.”

“But-”

“If I were you,” He says sternly, a smile no longer on his face, “I would just do it.”

“Sir, if I may-”

“No, you may not!” He yells, his voice echoing throughout the auditorium. “I don’t enjoy dealing with late students, nor do I like students interrupting my lectures. You, Miss, have done both! So I have asked you to leave and I would like you to adhere to it!”

You turn around, nodding slowly as the tears began to form and pool in your bottom eyelids. You walk towards the door, slowly moving to open it. As you stepped through, you heard the professor's voice once more.

“This isn’t high school anymore. There is no more easy.”

You shut the door behind you and began to run out of the building, not stopping until you were leaned up against a large tree in the main clearing of the building. There were other students around, a few studying, as well as a few using their backpacks for pillows to catch a quick snooze before their next class. You dropped your bag and took a swing at the tree trunk, tears spilling from your eyes as you did so.

“Stupid, fucking,” You say, punctuating every word with a weak punch to the tree. You only got in three before leaning your back against the tree and sliding down, sighing and closing your eyes when you hit the soft grass. You ran a hand through your hair once, stopping when your head was in your knees which were curled up to your chest. You breathed in and out slowly, sniffling on occasion as the tears kept falling.

After around ten minutes of just sitting outside, you wiped the back of your hand across your cheeks, removing the tears from your face. You cough, then move to stand up with your blue caboose bag in hand. Once up, you retrieve your phone from your pocket and begin walking across the clearing in search of the library. There, you could at least charge your computer and wait for your next class later on in the day.

You trudged across the clearing, squinting to keep the bright morning sun out of your eyes. To your own surprise there weren’t many students around the library steps as there usually was, but that wasn’t a problem for you necessarily. You walked up the stairs slowly, your feet slamming down quietly with each elevating step. Once up the small flight of stairs, you shoved the heavy glass door lightly, not waiting for it to shut before walking into the book-filled room. You looked around for a few moments before settling on a desk in the corner of the library, the desk having blocking walls so tall it was as if you were in your own room. You tore out your computer and your charger quickly, and not even seconds later you were typing in your password to your laptop. Briefly, you wondered what you were going to do until your next class four hours later, due to the fact that you had no homework to complete, but you just settled on logging into the chat room that you had come to love so well. Once logged in, you noticed that the activity had dulled exponentially since the night before when you had left to talk to the mysterious “Wade” in your own private chat. As the username ran through your mind, you couldn’t help but smile as you thought of all the fun times you and him had last night, just discussing your favorite Rooster Teeth related things until the smallest hours of the morning, when you had presumably passed out.

Clicking on your profile button quickly, you noticed a small red envelope pop up, signifying that you had a message that someone had sent you. You wondered briefly who it could have been before it loaded completely, answering all of your internal wonderings quickly.

_Wade: So I’m assuming that since you logged out of the chat when we were in the middle of talking that you passed out. I know it’s late for me here, so I’ll probably shut down my computer too. I hope you see this in the morning, and that you’ll know that I’m really looking forward to talking with you again tomorrow, hopefully. So, yeah, sleep well. -W_

You smiled to yourself, ignoring your internal cursings about you passing out in favor of the nicer message on your screen. You found it weird that you had just met him last night, and you already enjoyed his company so much, and you had never seen his face, heard his voice, or hell, you didn’t even know his real name. Unless it was Wade, which made you giggle to yourself quietly. You were seconds away from clicking the button to reply when you heard a chime and a little popup appeared on the bottom of the screen. It caught you by surprise, but it sure was a nice one.

 **Wade:** Oh, I didn’t expect you to be on in the morning. How are you?

 **You:** I’m never usually on around this time, because I usually have class. But that didn’t go so well this morning so here I am.

 **Wade:** Did something happen with your class or something?

You pause, not sure if you should tell what happened or not in order to not sound too whiny, but you decided to just tell him anyway.

 **You:** Yeah, I woke up late and got into class at least 10 minutes late after running all the way to school. Then when I got into the classroom my professor kicked me out. This morning has been way far from a good one. What about you, why are you on so early? Don’t you have work or school?

 **Wade:** Yeah, I’m actually at work now, but we aren’t doing anything and I’m allowed to be on my computer all day anyway.

 **You:** Geez, how can I get your job, it sounds fucking awesome. So much better than this fucking college shit.

 **Wade:** Who knows, maybe someday i’ll bring you down here to see it.

 **You:** That sounds awesome. I don’t even know what you do and it already sounds like something that I’d enjoy.

 **Wade:** We’re just an internet company. Machinima and all that shit mainly. We do some other fun stuff on the side though.

 **You:** That sounds fucking awesome.

 **Wade:** Hey, speaking of, we’re about to record something, and I can’t be on here when we do that, it screws with the quality or something.

You frown, the sadness of what had happened earlier coming back to you quickly in waves.

 **You:** Oh...okay. That’s fine. You’re busy anyway.

 **Wade:** That doesn’t mean we still can’t talk though. Here, we use AIM a lot to communicate while recording. I can give you that and we can talk while I’m at work.

You feel your face become warm as a huge smile spreads onto your face, you typing furiously to formulate a response back.

 **You:** Are you kidding, that would be awesome. If you haven’t noticed yet, I really like to talk to you.

There’s no response for awhile, which starts to make you nervous, but once you hear the chime again all anxiety fades quickly.

 **Wade:** I’ll type out my AIM username in the next message, as well as something else. And I like talking to you too, it makes me happy. I like your personality. Hopefully it’s not just some act over the internet.

You go to type out another response when another message comes in, displaying his AIM username, as well as 7 other digits. Your jaw nearly falls to the floor when you realize the phone number is actually written on the chat. Your smile grows wider as you reach for your phone in order to key the number in.

 **You:** Don’t worry, it’s not.

 

 


	3. Missing Names

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so it's been a really long time for this story, hasn't it. I decided to update this one next, due to the high demand and how much you guys really liked this story. You guys are hella amazing for keeping up with me and being as patient as you are, It's the greatest.  
> Hopefully you guys enjoy, this update took me a bit and it's mostly dialogue. But what do you expect from a chatroom AU?

The afternoon hanging around the library had been uneventful to say the least. You sat in the corner of the quiet room, computer plugged in to charge while you clicked away through the Rooster Teeth site, scanning new journals posted by the staff and taking note of the new upcoming streams and events, seeing if there happened to be any in your area. Sadly, there weren't, and you leaned back in the faux-comfortable chair, stretching as you exit out of the site and log in to tumblr. You feel the release of your tense muscles as you stretch, hearing your back pop at the exact time, which causes a relaxed smile to appear on your face.

Glancing around the library as your Internet browser loads, you see all types of students around you. The ones who are so busy that they accidentally fall asleep in their textbooks, the ones who are currently cramming all of the information from the last 5 chapters in their textbooks before the test they have today, the ones actually trying to just catch a break to study and get ahead, as well as the ones who wanted to get work done, but couldn't due to the fact that their phones just looked so inviting at that very moment.

You weren't one of those many diverse types at the moment, as you weren't trying to get school related work done, but rather trying to pass the time and get rid of the memory of the incident that had happened just earlier today. As your Internet browser refused to load the simplest things, you decide it would just be easier to get a little bit of rest, just leaning back in the not so comfortable chair and resting your eyes before your next lecture on two hours.

Though, as you let your back relax against the seat and your eyes flutter closed, your thoughts immediately wandered, leaving you in a state of dream like wonder, watching your current thoughts literally play in front of you like a movie of your mind. The movie continued to play on and on, growing in length with each passing minute. Everything was peaceful as your thoughts wandered aimlessly between all the diverse topics in your mind. Although, suddenly things weren't right as a loud sound filled your thoughts along you jerked upright, reaching for your phone frantically attempting to silence it before the sound finished. The chime of a message stopped as you grabbed the phone and shoved it harshly against your chest, cheeks turning bright red as the heat rises at a very swift pace. You felt all of the eyes on you, which made your embarrassment double by each passing second, but all the eyes only stared for a few moments, going back to what they were doing in the first place.

You huffed out a breath of relief, sagging back against your chair before grasping your phone and turning it on to look at the message that had caused quite a large degree of conflict, even if it had only lasted a few seconds. Upon looking down, you saw that it was an unknown number, not yet put into your phone, but to your peripheral you caught the current time, which caused you to shoot up from your chair. Frantically shoving everything into your blue caboose bag, which conveniently held everything you needed for classes each day, you sprinted out the door of the library, leapt down the stairs and full on sprinted into the main hall, not stopping until you were through the door and in your squeaky seat near the back of the auditorium. Multiple students saw you as you had made your not so exquisite entrance, but most of them looked away without judgement, while others just smiled at you as a sort of “I’ve been there, don’t worry” gesture.

Now that you were in your seat, less than 30 seconds to spare before the class began, you sat back and pulled out your phone, finally regarding the text message that came through. You heard as the professor entered the room, throwing down his papers before turning to start writing on the board. Pulling out a your textbook, a notebook and pen, as well as your laptop, you watched as the class began, him covering everything learned in the last lecture briefly. You concluded that you already knew the stuff well enough and picked up your phone, reading the illuminated text.

 **Unknown Number:** Hey, it’s Wade from the chatroom. Sorry I didn’t AIM you or something, I didn’t get the chance to while we were recording. Hopefully I didn’t interrupt anything important?

Your eyes widened in realization and you quickly keyed in his contact name, simply leaving it as Wade since you didn’t know any different. You figured you should probably ask at some point, but not now.

After putting the contact in, you pulled up the messenger and typed out a reply, sending it out with a tap of a button and a renewed smile on your face.

 **You:** Oh, it’s not a problem, I was just in the library anyway. Actually, it’s really good that you texted me when you did.

You waited for a reply, eyes focused on the board as the professor now flipped through a powerpoint. You saw nothing that you needed to know at the moment, so you just sat back and watched. You felt the vibration of your phone in your lap and you reached for it, reading the message quickly.

 **Wade:** Why’s that? Did I save you from getting mugged, dear citizen?

You smile to yourself, shaking your head as you typed back.

 **You:** This may have been more serious than a mugging, fellow citizen. I fell asleep in the university library and your text woke me up literally 2 minutes before class started.

Still paying a small amount of attention to the teacher, you idly scribbled notes while your’s and Wade’s conversation continued onwards.

 **Wade:** Wow, glad I could be of indirect service, or else you’d have had a reoccurrence of this mornings events, and that would be probably one of the worst things that could happen.

 **You:** God yes, no more of what happened this morning. It’s going to be so embarrassing to walk back into that class next lecture.

 **Wade:** I’m sure it’ll be fine, most people probably don’t even care about it anymore. They all have their own shitty problems to worry about anyways.

 **You:** Yeah, you’re probably right. So, what’re you up to over there? Still working I’d assume?

 **Wade:** Yep, pretty much, I tend to be just that amazing. And yeah, we’re kinda on crunch to get a few things filmed and edited today. We really need to get around to hiring more hands to help us out around here. How about you, how’s class?

 **You:** Hopefully that turns out alright, it sounds like it could be tiring. Class is alright, just doing pretty basic stuff that I already know about and what not.

 **Wade:** Which class are you in right now?

You smile to yourself, strangely excited about the two of you finally getting past the point of just small talk.

 **You:** It’s sort of a computer design class. We go over a ton of things, like editing, photoshop, some animation. Little bit of this, little bit of that. We usually just take notes in class and do assignments at home or in the lab.

 **Wade:** Wow, you’re into editing and all that? I had no idea, that’s awesome.

You find yourself blushing, putting your head down and staring at your lap while smiling. After taking a few moments to stare down at your lap and scribble down a few notes, you pick up your phone again and type out a reply, still smiling as you do.

 **You:** You really think so? I feel like I’m alright at it, I definitely need more practice though. I’ll probably be the greatest editor anyone has ever seen by graduation next year.

 **Wade:** Dude, that is literally the coolest thing I’ve heard all day. Congratulations, that is hella awesome. What other classes are you taking this semester?

 **You:** This class, a class about editing in movies, and a motion capture class. I’m a movie production major, so all the classes are kinda all over the place…

It takes him awhile to send a response, which slightly made you nervous, but once he responds your nerves fade away instantly.

 **Wade:** Holy shit, that is literally the most fucking awesome thing I have ever heard. What’re you planning on doing once you get your degree?

You take a moment, actually delving deeply into your thoughts of “what if’s” and “whens”, but when you actually tried to think of your future plans, you came up with a blank. In the past, when you’d first started this semester, you’d had small plans of moving out and going somewhere else to really make it for yourself, but now those plans seemed far off, way farther away from your grasp than they originally had.

 **You:** To be totally honest, after trying really hard to think about it, I can honestly say that I have no fucking idea.

 **Wade:** Are you Joshin’ me? There’s nowhere in particular that you want to work? Nowhere you want to move to?

 **You:** Yeah, no, I can’t think of anything. I’m sure I’ll end up with a job somewhere, but I can’t think of anything in particular. I can assure you, I am most certainly not Joshin’ you.

You laugh, thinking back on that one Internet Box podcast where Ray had pretty much said nothing but “Are you Joshin’ me?” for the entire episode. For a brief moment, you wonder if Wade has ever seen the Internet Box and is making a reference, or if it’s just a strange coincidence. Either way, it still made you smile.

 **Wade:** Normally I’d say that’s crazy or something along those lines, but I honestly can’t judge, up until a few years back I had never really had a set plan. Even then it wasn’t truly a set plan, so if things hadn’t worked out like they had, I’d probably be flipping burgers at McDonalds my entire life.

 **You:** What made you finally get a set plan? That is, if you don’t mind me asking.

 **Wade:** No, no, I don’t mind at all, just as long as you don’t mind listening to some pretty shitty stories.

 **You:** Of course not, I enjoy learning new stuff about people, especially since we’ve been talking pretty much non-stop. We really don’t know that much about each other.

 **Wade:** Yeah, you’re right. I’d like to learn more about you too.

You blush slightly, feeling the heat rise to your cheeks, though you don’t exactly understand why.

You were about to type out a reply when another message came in.

 **Wade:** I guess everything started back when I first moved out. I lived in New York at the time, and I worked for GameStop. I loved my job at the time, but a new manager came in and fucked it all up, so I had to quit. Then a few things happened and I was forced to get a job that payed me better. Now I’m where I am now, and if I ever get fired, I would probably be a true man and cry in my shitty apartment.

 **You:** Wow, okay, I’m sorry that your job that you liked didn’t work out.

 **Wade:** Nah, that job doesn’t even matter to me anymore. That job was complete shit now that I think back on it. We have a few people at the company I work at now that had that exact same job and they all didn’t really like it all that much either. We all really love our jobs now and don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.

 **You:** Well at least it was for the better?

 **Wade:** Yeah, I guess it was, wasn’t it. Without all the bullshit, I probably wouldn’t be where I am now, so. Thank you based bullshit gods.

Your attention gets pulled away from your phone as the class begins to move, all of them having been still for nearly 3 hours. The professor closed out of the powerpoint and began to write the assignment for the night on the board. You scribbled it into your notes quickly as he wrote it, making a mental note to yourself that the assignment wouldn’t take you more than 20 minutes at most. You silently cheer to yourself as you close your textbook and laptop, setting them all in a neat pile on your desk before going back to your phone.

 **You:** #TYBBG, am I right?

 **Wade:** You are indeed right.

 **You:** When am I not right? I am the greatest, so the answer is never, by the way.

 **Wade:** You know something? I really enjoy your sense of humor, it always makes me laugh. the guys at my work keep looking at me like I’m insane because I keep laughing at my phone.

 **You:** Well that’s extremely nice and very appreciated, kind sir. Well, my class just ended, so I need to walk home, but I’ll talk to you later?

 **Wade:** Yeah, absolutely. We’re about to record anyway. Maybe we could do something later that can be done over the internet, it’d be fun.

 **You:** Yeah, that sounds awesome! I’ll message you in a bit.

With that, you stood up and walked down the stairs of the auditorium slowly, just relishing in the happiness you felt in your core, finally getting the feeling of walking home happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kind of stumped where to go next with this. If you have ideas, TELL ME! I'd love to hear it.


	4. Softer Knight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quicker update than even I expected. It's a little shorter, but it's setting up the next one, don't worry.
> 
> Thanks to acciolove for helping me with the idea, which is set up in this chapter!

Once home, flopping down on your bed, face down into a pillow, felt like the greatest feeling in the world. You sat there for a few moments, feeling the cool pillow form around your head while you thought about the events for the day. This mornings class that dealt with the calculations involved with the mathematical elements of animation and production hadn't gone well, which was a huge negative, but honestly, thinking about it compared to the rest of your day, it was so miniscule that it didn't even matter to you anymore.

The highlight of the day had obviously been talking to the infamous Wade over text,  the two of you finally taking the next few steps in friendship by getting past the basic small talk. For a moment, you quickly wondered where that would lead to next in both of your endeavors.

Fearing that you'd fall asleep for the second time today, you proped yourself up on your elbows and forced yourself to stand up, stretching as you did so.  Unusually, you didn't feel tense at all in the current moment, which made you smile a genuine smile before you wandered off to the kitchen to grab a snack.

Passing by the living room before entering the kitchen, you quickly rifle through the blue bag that had been haphazardly thrown onto your couch when you'd come home for your phone. As soon as you found the small object you let the bag fall over onto it's side once more, turning your back on it to continue your walk into the kitchen, snack bound.

You threw the door to your pantry open quickly, running your eyes over the rather empty shelves. Due to your laziness and inability to go shopping more than once every two months, you chose a bag of microwaveable butter popcorn. You sigh to yourself as you realize that it was the last bag in the box, setting it down in the microwave before typing in your perfected time for the popcorn to have exactly one unpopped kernel in the bag. It had taken years of mastery to become the microwave popcorn master, multiple burned bags and many inedible ones for some reason or another, but you could finally say that you felt as of you were the true master. You had never met someone that could pop every single kernel and all the rest of the pieces still come out like perfection, so that by default made you the master. Some day you'd have to get yourself an impromptu certificate of excellence for your popcorn skills.

While you waited for the popcorn to pop to almost perfection in the microwave, you turned on your phone and clicked to open the messenger, clicking on Wades name with zero hesitation. Your eyes quickly scanned the previous messages the two of you had sent to one another while you'd been in class and smiled to yourself widely before beginning to type out a new message.

 **You:** Guess who made it home without tripping on a flat surface? Spoiler alert, it's me.

You turned your attention to the spinning bag in the microwave, watching as it spun around in a set pattern as the seconds ticked away. You heard your phone buzz on the counter, so you turned your attention to that instead.

 **Wade:** Wow, spoilers. It hasn't been two weeks yet, you can't talk about it, duh. You ruined it for me. Why this.

 **You:** Well, sucks to suck right. Tell me about how it feels to suck.

 **Wade:** I’ll tell you right now, it sucks. Get it? I bring the comedy.

You try not to laugh, but it was just so stupid that it was funny somehow. Either that, or you were so tired that it was the funniest thing ever. You heard the droning beeps of the microwave over your shoulder but you ignore it for the moment in favor of replying to the text.

 **You:** Wow, maybe you should take the comedy elsewhere, yeah? That was terrible.

Smiling widely, you send the teasing message off to Wade, then set your phone down to grab out a bowl for popcorn. You carefully tear the popcorn bag open, attempting not to burn your fingers from the steam as you dump it into the colorful bowl. As always, you see the one unpopped kernel and briefly mentally curse the damn thing out for always keeping you from perfection. Grabbing the bowl and a soda from the fridge, as well as your phone from the counter, and you set off into the living room. You turned on the floor lamp in between your two couches before sitting down, putting your feet up on your coffee table before turning on your TV. You picked up your phone and went onto YouTube, clicking on the newest thing from the Let’s Play channel, which was a new episode of VS. With a click of a button you used your Chrome Cast to cast the episode on your TV.

You listen to the intro before picking up your phone, seeing that there’s a text from the infamous Wade once again.

 **Wade:** Stop the bullying, my feelings. They bleed.

 **You:** Cleanup on aisle 3 for your bleeding feels.

 **Wade:** Please, it would clearly be aisle 4. Anyway, what’re you up to?

You find yourself distracted on the VS episode, watching as Ryan is challenged to something stupid yet again, everyone else crowded around his desk as him and Gavin battle it out for the belt.

 **You:** Watching a new let’s play. Well, VS anyway. Have you seen it yet?

 **Wade:** Ah, yeah, I’ve seen that one...It’s a good one for sure.

You watch on the screen as all the guys begin to make fun of Gavin, most likely to distract him from the game so that he keeps up his losing streak. You look around at all of the guys’ various expressions as they watch the game playing out in front of them, each holding a mic. Lindsay’s perfect iPhone camera skills give the perfect view of everything going on surrounding the competitors as they duel for the legendary belt. You hear a familiar scoff from a specific office member, which turns your attention to the TV rather than your phone. It was Michael.

“Ray, what the fuck dude?” Michael asks, laughing as he does so. This makes Geoff and Jack turn their heads towards the man’s direction.

“Wow, Ray, is that what I hired you for?” Geoff asks sarcastically, causing the others to laugh.

Lindsay focuses her camera on Ray’s face, and you watch as he looks up in surprise with slightly wide eyes.

“What, how do you know I’m not achievement hunting on my phone, Geoff?” Ray asks, a smirk on his face and his iPhone in his hand. Geoff swats at his phone quickly, but Ray dodges, laughing as Geoff almost falls over.

“Wow, maybe I should be the one getting the belt this week.” Ray jests, smiling widely as all the other guys start to laugh. They all go back to watching the competition at hand, but suddenly Michael restarts talking to Ray.

“So, Ray, what’s so interesting on your phone that you’re on it all day, hmm?” Michael asks, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. Ray looks up, a small smile on his face momentarily before it vanishes, noticing that multiple eyes as well as Lindsay’s camera was pointed directly at him.

“Can’t a Puerto Rican have friends, Michael? Are you judgin’ me bro?”

“A man can have friends, but is it a friend, or a... _friend_?” Michael asks, waggling his eyebrows suggestively once more. Ray takes a moment, but he just laughs it off, smiling slightly as he shakes his head.

“Yeah, nope.”

“He probably doesn’t even know her name, he met her online because he has no female skills at all.” Geoff teases, smirking as he does so.

“Man, you’re right Geoff. That hurts, right in the feels.” He says in play dejection, touching his hand to his chest in mock hurt in his heart.

They all turn their attention back to Ryan and Gavin’s intense competition, the conversation finally staying dormant, while Ray still remains on his phone, quieter than usual but a small smile still remaining on his face as he types away.

You remember that you’d left off in the middle of a conversation on your phone, eagerly picking up your phone to respond and continue the conversation.

 **You:** Sorry about that, I got distracted. Not really used to holding conversations much anymore. You’re right, this one really is a good one. My bet is on Ryan to win, just because Gavin was the one to pick the game. It’s just like him to choose a game to play that he can’t even win. God knows we’ve seen it happen enough in the past, right?

 **Wade:** Oh, yeah, that’s no problem. Don’t text much?

 **You:** Not typically, no. I had a few friends I used to text with awhile back, but they kinda just...stopped one day. No idea what happened.

 **Wade:** Wow, that’s fucking awful of them. I seriously wonder what made them do such an asshole thing like that.

 **You:** Eh, can’t say I didn’t see it coming though. Never really had a great forte in getting friends and keeping them. It’s alright though, I’m decently busy with school at the moment, with the semester coming to a close and all. It’s gonna suck in a few weeks for me.

You watch as Ryan takes the victory once again, proving your bets right, as well as satisfying you that his victory streak keeps continuing as he makes his reign of terror around the small office.

 **Wade:** I don’t see how you don’t have a bunch of friends, your personality is great, you make me laugh all the time. I would've thought you’d be the most popular girl at your college.

You scoff, thinking about what college would be like if that were even remotely true in any way.

 **You:** Yeah, no, that isn't true in any way. I barely talk to anyone around campus, since they all live in dorms and I'm probably one of the only ones that doesn't.

 **Wade:** Not a dorm person, huh? I don't blame you, I wouldn't want to live in one either. So listen, I'm home from work, and I have a question for you.

Popping a piece of popcorn in your mouth, you raise your eyebrow in wonder, typing out a response quickly.

 **You:** And what might that question be?

You kept your messenger app up, awaiting a response, but you didn't get one as quickly as you usually did, so you reached over for your bag and pulled out your laptop. It booted up quietly, but once it was on the screen to enter in your password, you heard your phone buzz from next to you.

 **Wade:** Do you have skype?

Biting your lip in worry, you contemplate your response, deciding after a few moments that it would just be better to be honest.

 **You:** I do, I just don't typically do voice or video calls...I'm not a big fan of my voice, let alone my own face.

 **Wade:** We could just stay texting if you'd like, I was just wondering if you'd want to play games or something. I'd be easier if we could communicate, probably.

You contemplate for a moment, but decide that it really didn't matter and sometimes it's better to just stop caring about certain things.

 **You:** On second thought, what's your username, we're gonna do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finals week! So, starting tomorrow I get out of school hella early and have a ton of time on my hands. Do any of you have any requests for what should be updated more often? This will be between ALL of my current fics. Thanks!


	5. Lava Burns like My Feelings Simmer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scheduled update on time!
> 
> SCHEDULE (WEEK OF DEC 21)  
> Mon: Bolder Behind the Screen  
> Tues: Secrets of the Savior  
> Wed: NEW RELEASE *possibly*  
> Thurs: Day for working on a lengthy one-shot NONE  
> Friday: Bolder Behind the Screen  
> Sat and Sun are a free for all.

Within seconds he replied with his username and you were at your desktop in your room, headset on, as well as your most comfortable pyjamas. You told him to call first, so you sat with your bowl of popcorn to your right, continually eating more and more pieces of the buttery snack. Somehow in the process of five seconds, you had mentally challenged yourself to eat two handfuls at once, which led to you having chipmunk cheeks and an inability to speak. When his call came in, you answered it, but typed in the chat for him to wait a few moments before you would be able to talk. After you had swallowed the insane amount of popcorn, you cleared your throat and began to speak.

"Hey, uh, sorry that took so long, I had a popcorn...incident." You say, laughing nervously towards the end.

"No problem, it's cool. Sorry if my quality is complete shit, I'm waiting for a new mic to come in. I fucked this one up pretty badly."

"I can still hear you, which is pretty good for a fucked up mic. What'd you do to the poor thing?"

"Well you see, I was late for work one morning and went to grab a soda off of my desk from the night before, when I tipped it over and it went all over my desk. It takes a special set of skills to be like me."

You laugh briefly, smiling as you pick up a piece of popcorn and throw it into your mouth.

"Man, if only I could be like you. The only similar story I have to that is the time I ruined my phone by dropping it in a bowl of Ramen. I still ate the ramen."

You hear him laugh, a hearty laugh that makes you start to laugh along with him. He takes a while before clearing his throat and speaking up again.

"Holy shit, how does that even happen?"

"Psh, don't ask me! Its not like I wanted it to happen. It literally corroded the battery almost instantly. The phone didn't like the delicious soup as much as I did." You say while smiling, actually starting to feel a little more comfortable.

"At least we seem to be on the same level of skill when it comes to technology so far,” he says, pausing to laugh before speaking again, “other than the fact that you’re an editing and production major. You definitely have me beat there.”

You shrug, not realizing that he couldn’t see you. “Nah, it’s only difficult for the first little bit. The most difficult part by far is learning the software. Once you know that and get down the basics, anything is possible.” You express, adding a slight exclamation to the end.

He chuckles, “For you maybe. When I had to learn to edit, I was complete shit at it. No one taught me either, I just had to figure it out. As you could probably guess, it was horrible.”

“Was it ‘eight year old with Windows Movie Maker’ bad?” You ask, smiling towards the end. You’d seen countless videos over the internet that were just so shitty it was awful. Cringe worthy even.

“Oh god no,” he lets out a loud snicker, “I was at least decent. Whatever you call that shit is something else. Cringe worthy.” He answers, making you smile.

“I was gonna say cringe worthy as well. Man, twinsies.”

“Twin- fuck, you beat me. Damn it.” You can hear the fake exasperation in his voice which makes you chuckle, putting a hand over your mouth to contain any unwanted screeching sounds that may or may not ensue. For a moment, neither of you speak, and you find yourself alone in your thoughts as you hear his mouse clicks faintly through the mic. Even though his quality isn’t the greatest, you can still sorta hear his voice. If you were to describe it, you’d describe it as someone you’ve heard before.

 _It does sound really familiar…_ you think to yourself, biting your lip as you delve deeper into your thoughts, attempting to recall where you’d heard that voice before.

"So, uh...come here often or..?" Wade finally says, breaking the silence that you'd barely noticed while you were stuck in your thoughts.

"Yeah, definitely. All the time." You answer, your mind still trying to track through all the people you'd ever talked to.

"Any thoughts on what we should do?"

"No, not really, I'm up for anything though, really."

"What even are things that we could do over computer?" He asks, sighing as you hear him begin to click aimlessly.

"We could play minecraft. Or some cards against humanity. I don't really care, anything works."

“Yeah, sounds good. Which do you prefer? We could do both if you’d like.” He asks you, a genuine curiosity in his voice. You take a moment to contemplate, juggling a few ideas around in your mind before answering him again.

“Let’s do minecraft. Do you have a server in mind?” You answer, deciding that it’s probably better to mine coal with someone you just met rather than have them see how big of a psychopath you were. There was a reason that you only played the online version by yourself, that way no one knew who you were and couldn’t exactly judge you to your face. Man, isn’t the internet great.

“I know of one that I found quite awhile back that isn’t all that crowded, so as long as we trek far enough away from spawn we’ll be able to set up camp without anyone bothering us. Hopefully, anyway. “ Wade says, as you hear more clicks come from his end of the call.

You humm affirmatively, though immediately change the subject.

“It’s kind of strange, you know,” You pause, scratching your nose. You see an IP address come through the skype chat, and you quickly open up your minecraft launcher in preparation for your guys’ game session. He hums in a questioning tone and you continue softly. “I don’t know, it’s just weird that I can hear your mouse clicks but I can’t hear your voice all that well.  It’s really making me wonder what it’d be like to hear it crystal clear.”

Wade laughs, but only briefly. You noticed that he did that a lot, but you didnt really mind. His laugh never ceased to make you smile, for whatever reason that might be.

“I can assure you, it’s nothing great.”

“Nah, come on, I bet all the ladies love it.”

“Yeah, all two ladies I’ve ever met and become friends with in my life.”

You laugh but it comes off as more of an unbelieving scoff.

“I’m serious! The people I work with, they always make fun of me for not having a girlfriend or even going out on dates. Even the total dweeb of our office gets more dates than I do. It’s probably his ridiculous accent.”

“Not to alarm you or anything, but if he’s the dweeb and gets dates, wouldn’t that make you the new office dweeb?”

“Wait, shit! Damn it, you’re right. Fuck.” You try to suppress the laugh that you can feel coming out of your chest, but instead you just end up spitting on your monitor screen and letting out a huge hearty laugh that even most of your friends had never heard. You hear Wade begin to laugh on the other end of the call, which, in reality, should make you conscious of yourself, but only in this scenario you didn’t. That’s a miracle that’s never happened before.

“Wow, I never knew that I could be that funny. Thanks for making me look cool, you’re a real bro.” Wade says in between laughs, you finally starting to calm down a little bit more after the whole ordeal.

“Oh god, what the hell.” You squeak out, coughing slightly to mask the fact that you were still kinda laughing. You take a deep breath and let it out in one huff, then use your hoodie sleeve to begin to wipe off your monitor screen.

“That was amazing. Hands down the best thing that’s happened to me all day.” He says, and even though you can hear a slight amount of joking in his tone, for some reason it registers as entirely serious.

“How is that the best thing that’s happened all day?” You question, finally logging in to the minecraft server now that your monitor didn’t look like it was caught in the crossfire of Niagara falls. You immediately see a steve character in a suit, with the name AH_Brown above it. You giggle to yourself quietly, but apparently not quietly enough because Wade was immediately commenting on it.

“What’s so funny, did you finally realize was a huge loser I am? That shit would be funnier than any Seth Rogen comedy anyone has ever seen.”

You scoff, calling bullshit in a matter of seconds. “Okay, two things. One, no, and I’m pretty sure I’m a way bigger loser than you are by far, and two, Seth Rogen brings the comedy. As a Rogen fan, I disagree entirely on very many levels.”

“Again, in my mind, you’re the coolest girl on your college campus. If that’s not it, then what were you laughing about over there?” He questions, and you can practically hear the grin through the shitty mic, you didn’t even have to see his face.

_His face would be nice to see, though. He sure does have a nice voice, there’s probably a stunning face to go along with it that could totally rock my world…_

“Hello, anybody there, can you hear me now, I’m going through a tunnel. Can you hear me now? How about now?” You find yourself beginning to laugh again, each laugh racking your chest which makes your chair squeak.

“No, absolutely not, your quality is clearly crystal fucking clear, I had no idea you were going through a tunnel good sir.”

“You sarcastic little shit.” He answers, a newly found fondness in his voice.

“ _Me?_ ” You squeak out, putting a hand over your heart in mock hurt, even though he couldn’t see it. “You’re the sarcastic little shit, you dweeb!” You sneer out the last word playful, making weird snickering sounds at the end of it. You hear a surprised squawk come from his mic, and you can’t help but bark out a heavy laugh at that, which soon spread like a wildfire, making both of you collapse into a laughing fit in your desk chairs until you both finally go silent.

“Wow, we got off topic fast, didn’t we?”

You scoff, but in affirmation. “That’s pretty typical with me, I don’t know why but sometimes it leads to some interesting stuff, so I won’t complain.” You say, shrugging as a smile appears on your face as you mull over the events that had just transpired the last few minutes.

“It sure did lead to something interesting, so I’ll join you in not complaining. Anyway, back on topic, what exactly were you laughing about before all that cluster fuck?” He asks, interest in his voice.

“Oh, nothing. Just your minecraft nametag, AH_Brown. You probably had to kill a man to get that name before someone else took it.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Plus, I was laughing because your nametag has to do with Ray, and coincidentally, so does my skin.” You continue, using your wireless mouse to spin your character around.

“Yeah? What’s your skin- _Holy shit_ , is that X-Ray?” He squeaks out, the excitement making his voice rise a few octaves. Or maybe twenty. Either way, it was kind of adorable. Though, you’d definitely never say that out loud to him.

“Hell yeah, it’s X-Ray. Best superhero, hands down. Way better than Vav.” You say, using your keyboard and mouse to begin making your character walk circles around Wade’s.

“Fuck yeah he is. It’s nice to meet a fellow X-Ray fan. Most people go for Vav, because a ton of the ladies in the fanbase think he’s hot shit or something and totally want to bang him.” You can practically hear the eye roll that followed the end of that sentence, and you scoff, knowing that all of that was absolutely true. You’ve spent your time on tumblr, you know exactly where he’s coming from. Plus, the chatroom that the two of you had met in in the first place had a lot of those type of people, sometimes mainly just for Gavin, but it spanned all others as well. You yourself had always been a Ray girl, ever since the day he joined.

“Dude, I hear you with that one. Personally, I think he’s great and all, he works well with all the other guys to create good content, but I’m a big Ray fan.” You say, your heart skipping a beat due to anxiety of something that you’d probably be ashamed of if it slipped your lips. Though, as you hear him laugh, your anxiety melts away somehow, which perplexes you momentarily before he talks again.

“Yeah, I’ve heard he’s pretty cool. Total chick magnet too, you know, probably gets all the ladies. Oh, and the dudes, because he’s just that good.”

“I’m glad you see things the same way I do, Wade.”

“I’m sure that we’d see a lot of things eye to eye.” He whispers, which you barely heard. Though, for the time being, you just decide to leave it alone, with the visual of the two of you running off into the pixeled woods in search of a temporary happy ending.


	6. Broken Silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, okay! So it's been forever, right? Hopefully that habit of only updating every 2 months on this stops soon. I had fun writing this! It's shorter than normal, but believe me, that doesn't mean anything bad for the story.

“This seems like a good spot to me, what about to you?” The crackle of his voice rings through your headphones, and you spin your character around in order to survey the area further.

The area itself was very appealing to the eye, the terrain vastly varying in degrees of elevation. The two of you stood at the very bottom of a steep incline that barely ceased before your view distance came to a stop. Behind where you stood, there was a shallow lake, only a mere one block deep, but very vast all the same. Though, you could still see the other side, the grass and extremely deep green. A small island say in the middle of the water, a singular tree with one red flower sitting underneath it.

“It’s a shame,” Wade begins and you hum in a questioning tone, “that they took out the roses. They were my favorite flower.”

“The roses were quite pretty,” You answer, smiling and nodding from behind your computer screen. You continued to look around the terrain, looking at the foliage rather than anything else. The two of you were stood in a bright birch biome, no other trees around you except for the one oak on the island, with a semi short stature adorned with very few vines cascading down from the leaves. Just beyond the horizon, you saw tall oak trees in the distance, an oak forest biome directly bordering this birch forest biome. Beneath the leaves of the numerous birches, flowers of every kind littered the dark green grass. White flowers, purple flowers, tall and short, each pleasing to your eye.

“I like it,” You say, cheer in your voice, finally spinning your character around to look at his.

“I’m glad that we feel the same, it's beautiful. FInally, after what had to have been an hour of walking around, we’ve found somewhere to make a house.”

“Well, two houses,” you state, pressing a few keys on your keyboard idly.

“Why two? I’m quite hurt that you don’t want to live with me, Miss X-Ray!” He gasps, mock exasperation in his voice.

“What, no! I had no idea we were going to love together, you idiot!” You answer, imitating his exasperation before adding “Also, ‘ _Miss X-Ray_ ’? Really?”

“Of course we’ll make a house together, this is our own little minecraft let’s play! It’s not like we’re married or anything when we have the same house,” He responds, adding in a laugh at the end.

“Yeah, you’re right, _Mr. X-Ray_.” You joke, sneering the nickname at the end affectionately. For some reason it felt right as the words rolled off your tongue, and you found yourself smiling as you heard the chime of his laugh through the static of the call. You felt your stomach flip at the sound, and you could imagine his smile: bright, joyous- so infectious it would be impossible to reciprocate.

“We should probably get to gathering the materials, then, just so that we don’t end up screwing around in a hole in the ground waiting for the sun to rise,” He states as you watch his character set off in the direction of the oak forest on the horizon. You silently agree, picking a birch tree not too far from the lake. There’s a momentary silence, but it’s in no way uncomfortable. Usually, you hated being on a call that falls silent eventually, but for some reason you felt comfortable in the silence, and you weren’t too sure why. But then again, it didn’t matter too much. It was actually kinda nice.

As time passed, the two of you worked tirelessly before night fell, separating tasks in order to ensure your survival for the coming night. You voted yourself as the designated house architect, constructing a moderately sized house out of the varied types of wood planks and stones, made bright with glass panes allowing light to flow in. As you strived to make the house aesthetically pleasing, Wade had set out to gather foods and other things such as leather and wool.

Throughout the entire time, the two of you talked idly, each of you learning more and more information about each other with each passing moment. So far, you had learned that he was living in Austin, his apartment just slightly out of downtown You had already heard about his job before, but you had asked for more details, but he never provided more than a vague few.

As night fell, and the two of you had set your spawn, the two of you set off to a cave that he had found when he had gone out looking for food. The two of you walked through the cave system, never leaving each other’s metaphorical sides throughout the entire time. The whole adventure had been mostly uninterpreted, so the two of you fell into another casual pattern of discussion, only this time he seems to be focusing on you.

“So you said at one point that you live all by yourself?” He asks you, a curious tone in his voice. You sigh, watching as a block of coal ore broke into pixels in front of you before answering him.

“After high school...shit got a little rough. So, while everyone else is moving out with their ‘BFF’s’, I’m sitting on a corner all in my lonesome,” You state, a small tinge of sadness in your voice that you struggle to make undetectable, semi hoping that he won’t continue, while at the same time hoping that he does.

“Is it alright if I ask what happened? I mean, if that’s cool with you and all, I don’t want to do anything that isn’t cool,” He rambles, making you laugh a breathy laugh. You always admired his ability to make something serious a tinge less serious. If it was was anyone else, you wouldn’t have answered, or would have given some short answer and changed the subject immediately after. But him? He was different.

“Are you sure you even want to hear this? We’re having a good time and everything, I don’t want to ruin it with the stories from my depressing high school days,” You say, not wanting to jeapordize what the two of you had going just because you started dredging up your past.

“Of course I do, I love listening to you talk about stuff. Hell, you could talk about the weather for 3 hours and I’d be intrigued,” He said, fondness in his genuine tone. You felt the heat beneath your cheeks gradually grow hotter, a faint blush on your face.

“You’re too nice, it’s almost like you actually enjoy my lame humor and voice,” You scoff, taking a deep breath before continuing on with your story.

“My life...it’s always been working against me. Or, at least that’s what it feels like. Kind of like attempting to walk forwards in a current heavily pushing the other direction. In middle school, it took me forever to find a single friend. Everyone had always looked down on me for some reason, a reason that my mind could never wrap around no matter how long I thought about it or how hard I tried. It always seemed like whatever I did, people refused it in some way or another, like I was just never good enough for their standards.

“It took me a year and a half to get a friend that didn’t just talk to me as a joke, or for, as I once heard from someone who had claimed to be my friend, ‘a ploy just to talk to me and see if I was truly the freak everyone thought I was’. That seemed to be a trend that continued for awhile, even after I was out of middle school and away from most of them. Anyway, I’m not even there yet. Are you sure you want me to keep going?” You ask, heavy concern soaking each word.

“Yeah, absolutely, tell me anything you want as long as you’re okay with it,” He says, his voice soft and genuine. You had to admit, the way his voice sounded then made your heart melt, a warmth spreading throughout your chest.

"Finally, a year later someone began to talk to me, and I actually felt like I was wanted for legitimate reasons, not for some stupid prank or a funny joke. Even though I had no idea that she was trying to be genuine, I still trusted her. I guess that had been my downfall in all the times past, too. One day, she just started talking to me, and I just went along with it assuming that she’d just leave like the rest of them. Though, after a little while she invited me over to her house, and I got scared. Not because of her, but because I wasn’t used to it. All the years of never having any healthy social interaction turned me into someone who couldn’t even be able to handle the simple idea of friendships. So, I ditched her. I stayed home and cried. Did my parents notice? Nope. They never really gave a damn anyway.

“Though, when she showed up at my doorstep that night, something clicked. It was like someone had shut off a switch or something, and I actually felt human. We’d spent the night together and I was shocked when she was still there in the morning, curled up inside the sleeping bag I had dug out of the garage for her. After that, such a large life change, things are supposed to get better right? That’s what they always say? Well, they must’ve lied something fierce.”

“What happened?” Wade asks softly with a sad tone in his voice, which could barely be heard through the static. You sighed, angling your head towards the floor and closing your eyes, willing the tears to stay at bay. You had always been told to hold it in, to not cry in front of people. Plus, you had just met him, you didn’t want to scare him off.

“I-it…” You voice wavers and stutters as you speak, your barriers tumbling down at an alarming pace, “It was a sham. She convinced me that everyone deserved a best friend, and convinced me that she was it. Well, and because I was too stupid to know otherwise, I believed her. I believed that it was okay for best friends to do shitty things to you, that it wasn’t rude for them to make vicious comments about the things that you hate the most about yourself and to laugh about it like it’s the funniest fucking thing. Hell, she actually _kicked me out_ one time because I got mad at her for saying something rude about someone, and she told me that I couldn’t be around her if I was going to be so rude as to not laugh at her ‘jokes’,” You say, disgust in your voice. Wade remained silent, and you worried that he was gone until he cleared his throat and spoke up.

“What happened to her?” He questions, voice still quiet and barely audible.

“Funnily enough, she left me. I put up with her shit for all of high school. I don’t even count middle school, because she was actually decent in middle school. Then in high school she found some other bitch her exact same speed and I got roped in with the both of them. People thought we were all best friends forever, showcased our relationship in the yearbook senior year as one of the stupid category groups. ‘Most Likely to be Best Friends Forever’ my ass. Right after high school, they didn’t hesitate to kick my sorry ass to the curb and never say anything to me ever again. It’s not like they’re gone either, they go to my university. At least I’ve gone this far without them publically humiliating me. I’d be lying if I said I don’t dread it every night before I go to bed. They sure do have the ammo for it, because I was dumb enough to tell them everything. They even took me in when my parents kicked me the fuck out. Though, once we graduated, I came home and saw my sorry box of shit on the porch. No note, no nothing. Real classy if I do say so myself,” You punctuate your whole spiel with a sarcastic laugh, using it to cover the tears that came streaming down your cheeks. They felt hot against your skin, and you attempted to keep quiet as you used the back of your hand to wipe them away, but in the process you managed to rub the mic and sniffle. Immediately Wade was talking, his tone entirely different this time around.

“I wasn’t going to say anything because I was worried it would come off as strange or too forward, but (y/n), you’re fucking fantastic. None of this shit is justified, and honestly, those girls are literal trash who were glorified simply because you shone so brightly that they went from coal to diamond. I will bet you anything, now that they don’t have you, they are nothing but a dull, mundane piece of shit that someone stepped on and had to hose off with a hose. Honestly, right now, I don’t give a _fuck_ if I’m being way too into the shit analogies, but for fucks sake, it’s _true_ ,” You laugh a laugh that’s a half cross between unbelieving and flattered, you cheeks growing warmer by the passing second, causing you to cover your face with your hands. “And if I had the honor of being where you are, I would make sure each and every day you realize that you are the literal embodiment of perfection in this world- the light in the darkness, the sunlight in the darkest of storms. I would say that every morning, and would hope with all I have in me that you’d believe me. Even if you didn’t, I’d know you heard me and that’s enough. I’d yell it from the tallest mountain in an attempt to let everyone in the world know it, too, and I wouldn’t give a fuck who heard me,” He finishes, his voice returning back to its previous quiet state as he regathered his breath from his impromptu speech. You were still crying, but at this it was just idle tears running down your cheeks. You felt you stomach doing flips like the circus’ greatest acrobat as his words ran through your brain over and over again, each repetition putting a larger smile on your face and a deeper shade of red on your cheeks.

“I...I don’t…” You stutter, attempting to find the appropriate words for the situation. Did you say thank you for something like that?

“(Y/N), don’t worry about it,” he spoke, gently and honestly, “I should apologize, that was way too forward. I mean, you barely know me. I probably just seem like a huge creep right now-”

“No!” You say quickly, internally cursing yourself for answering too quickly, “I mean, it’s fine. Honestly, that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” You elaborate, your voice quieting with embarrassment.

“How and the _hell_ am I the first person to say those things to you?” He asks seriously, but with his joking tone returning. You laugh a short laugh and shrug, twirling a piece of your hair around your finger.

“No one’s ever treated me this way before,” You hesitantly say, your voice nearly a whisper.

“Well,” He starts, matching your tone and volume, “I really wish it wasn’t just over the internet.”

“I,” You pause, “I wish it wasn’t either.”

The call goes quiet for a few seconds, the static being the only idle noise in the call for those moments.

“You should go to sleep,” He suggests, his voice breaking the silence.

“Why’s that?”

“Trust me, I know that getting that emotional can get tiring,”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Can I message you in the morning?” He asks, a hint of embarassment in his voice.

“Of course.”

“As much as I don’t want to say awesome, I am out of better words. Good night, (y/n). I hope you sleep well.”

As the call ended, it felt like a jarring pull back into reality, your ears suddenly filled with nothing but silence for the first time in hours. You gently rested your hand on the lid of your laptop, seconds away from closing it before a last message came through.

_By the way, your voice is beautiful._

With a smile spreading across your cheeks, you closed the laptop slowly, his voice filling your mind.

Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you had this strange feeling that you’d heard his voice before now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of that may or may not be semi-personal things that have actually happened to me before.


	7. Intermittence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More consistent updates!

It all began with a scream.

You shot up quickly, some extra pillows and a small blanket cascading over the edge. You look around the room frantically, but it was essentially pointless as your eyes were still blurry from sleep. You quickly regained your bearings, finally deducting where the blaring sound was coming from, and slammed your hand down onto your phone screen. As you rubbed the sleep from your eyes with two balled up fists, you find yourself questioning as to why you ever decided that it would be a good idea to set your school alarm to the infamous “Gavin Screaming”. Even though it did get you up immediately in the morning, was it always worth the heart attack every morning? Truthfully, you didn’t care as long as you didn't have another incident like you had a little while prior. Running had never appealed to you, especially not running across town to get to campus.

Throwing your legs over the edge of the bed, you stand up and trudge towards your bedroom door seeking the bathroom just beyond it. Once inside, you throw on the light switch and turn your body to face the mirror, running tired eyes over your face before turning around and flipping on the shower. You rest your hand beneath the droplets falling in a steady stream, waiting for the water to reach prime temperature before beginning to strip down. Doing so quickly, you step into the shower and sigh as you feel the warm massaging water thud against your tired muscles, waking them up with each gentle strike. The water relaxes your mind and your body as it cascades down the length of your body, and as you reach for the shampoo you find your mind wandering.

As you massage the lukewarm soap into your hair, you find your mind wandering to last nights events, and a smile makes its way onto your lips involuntarily. You idly think about what the two of you had discussed and how you had felt getting all of those wounding secrets off of your chest. Even though you had just met the guy, and it wasn’t even a legitimate meeting because you had no idea what he even looked like, you felt like he was a better friend than anyone in the past had been. He listened to you as you talked, he sympathized, and he even tried to comfort you where you needed it. Each time you found yourself thinking about him, which had honestly became more and more frequent, you found yourself thinking extremely fondly of him, and even wondering about if the two of you could have a friendly future. In the past, the elementary school days, everyone always lectured you to never trust anyone you talked to on the internet, as you may not know if they are being genuine or not. Even though this thought was always in the back of your mind, you didn’t seem to care as much when it came to him. Someone that was just trying to rope you in in order to murder you in your sleep wasn’t going to be as kind as to listen to your middle school/high school sob story. But, you know, it was still just a hunch.

Sure, it was a big deal as any that he listened to you complain when you needed to, which most people never did, but it was just something about his _voice_. Even though you couldn’t hear him all that well because he fucking dropped his mic into a thing of Red Bull, you could still hear the emotion-filled ups and downs of his tones as he spoke to you. When the time and discussion called for jokes, he would joke around, but when the time came for seriousness and full-hearted discussion, he was certainly all there with everything he had. It was unusual, but did it matter the traditional ways that socialization and society worked these days? Things had certainly changed, so what was the ‘norm’ anymore?

As your mind wandered through all the elements that had become evident between you and him over the nights call, you began to think in even further detail. He had said that he worked for a company based out of Austin, and you had always wanted to see Austin, so what would be the harm if the two of you met in person? What could possibly go wrong? Who knows, maybe the two of you might hit it off face to face and really click.

“Christ, I just met him for God’s sake,” You mutter, washing the last bit of conditioning product from your hair that you had put in on autopilot. You quickly run your fingers through your hair once to check for any soap that hadn’t washed out, then upon finding none, you flip off the shower, cutting off the flow of water abruptly. Using your hand to wipe away the water droplets from your face and around your eyes, you pull back the fabric curtain and step onto the plush bath mat. You squish your toes together, running them through the soft shag carpet fibers of the mat as you reach towards the towel rack for one of your mismatched towels. After quickly drying off and putting on some clothes that sat in the clean hamper in the hallway, you shuffle towards your bedroom to collect your miscellaneous textbooks and your laptop. Today was the one day where your teacher requested that all the students bring their computer to class, but never specified why.

Without paying much thought to her possible reasoning behind this, you unplugged the thing and tossed it into its slot in your blue caboose bag along with your editing and production textbooks. Figuring that it wouldn’t matter much if you were early to campus or not, you slip on your shoes quickly and run to the bedside table and snatch up your phone, then set out for the day. Looking to make sure that you have all the things that you need, including your house keys, you shut the door with a loud thud and begin your trek to school.

Luckily, today, it was nice outside, clouds covering the sky in order to shield you from the harsh sun as you walked towards campus. Reaching down into your bag, you pull out your phone and your black pair of headphones and start up your playlist before opening up your messages. Noticing no new messages, you quickly tap on Wade’s message thread and type out a swift ‘good morning’ text, tapping the send key before dimming the screen.

Keeping your phone in your hand, you walk slowly, enjoying the quiet surroundings of the tiny college town. There was never really a hustle and bustle time in which traffic was unbearable because it was so small, and the most traffic you ever really saw was around the cafe in town square, the coffee shop near campus, and on campus itself. As you look around the small streets, glancing at all the small shops’ window displays and signs, you feel your phone vibrate in your hand. You glance down at your phone, unlocking it with ease before opening up the messages again. You grin widely as you see the familiar notification appear next to Wade’s name signifying a new message had come in. Clicking on his message thread, you carefully read his message.

 **Wade:** Well, good morning to you. Hopefully you didn’t sleep past your alarm this time?

Grimacing at the thought of that previous incident, you quickly type out a snarky reply and hit the send key, laughing to yourself as you cross the crosswalk into the town square.

 **You:** Well, that wouldn’t have been an issue had you not kept me up late that one time, idiot.

As soon as you’re passing by the cafe window, a new message comes in, and you don’t even bother looking at the sender before opening your phone.

 **Wade:** Oh bullshit, you know it wasn’t me who kept you up late, you chose to because I’m such a charmer. Also, it wasn’t me who slept through their alarm, so get fucking rekt.

You laugh a stifled laugh and move to type out a reply, but another message comes in before you can.

 **Wade:** So remember how I told you about AIM? Can we use that today? We have a shitload of recording to do so I can’t really be on my phone. Well, I mean, I can, but my co-workers will chew my ass out hardcore, they really bring the bullying.

You laugh again, quickly typing out an affirmative reply before exiting out in order to launch the AIM app that you had found online. Quickly logging in, you watch and wait for the symbol to appear next to his screen name. After a little while of waiting and not seeing the symbol, your phone screen dims on its own and you let it, focusing your eyes forward in order to watch for any oncoming cars as you prepare to cross the street in order to get onto the official university campus. Once across the street and onto the sidewalk leading up to the main building, you feel the different vibration from your phone signifying something other than a text. Seeing the notification, you swipe open your phone and go straight into the AIM app, tapping on Wade’s username quickly.

 **BRN:** Alright, we’re good on here. Sorry it took me a bit, had to set some stuff up first.

Choosing the sidewalk that goes directly behind the campus building into the main courtyard, you walk around the back of the building before choosing a tree in the courtyard to lean up against for the next hour until the professor showed up for your editing and productions class.

 **You:** It’s not a problem, I was walking to campus anyway.

You pause, chewing on your lip before tapping out another message.

 **You:** Don’t worry about responding quickly to me, your job is more important.

It only takes him a matter of seconds to respond to your messages.

 **BRN:** Absolutely not. I mean yes, my job is important, but I can talk to you while doing my job, which means by default you are automatically very important. Even if it wasn’t by default you’re still important.

You feel the heat rising to your cheeks, and you smile while typing out a reply.

 **You:** Wow, that’s definitely something that I haven’t heard before.

 **BRN:** Well, it’s true, so don’t doubt me. Does your class really start this early in the morning?

 **You:** I’m only an hour behind you, it’s not really all that early. Plus I got to school early this morning, so I just get to hang around for an hour until my editing and productions professor gets here.

 **BRN:** Oh yeah, I remember you telling me about that. Is it a fun class? I know I have to edit sometimes, and it’s never fun.

 **You:** Yeah, I like it. It’s my major, so I get to finish the classes this year then next year I’m supposed to look for an internship somewhere in the states to go and put my knowledge to actual use in a job to get experience. I need that in order to graduate.

 **BRN:** So you’re telling me that you only have this year left that you have to stay on that campus and actually go to class?

 **You:** Yeah, man, keep up, that’s what I just said. Idiot.

 **BRN:** Wow, so much salt. It stings. But seriously, that’s awesome. I’ll have to ask around here, remember how I said before that we may need to look for an additional editor to help us out around here?

 **You:** Oh yeah, I do remember that! It’s been awhile since then. But yeah, I’ve always wanted to visit Austin and it would be the bomb dot com if I could go down there for a year to work.

 **BRN:** You’re a fucking idiot, ‘the bomb dot com’? Are we kidding?

 **You:** No, I am certainly not joshin’ you.

 **BRN:** Dude, it’s a good thing you aren’t joshing me, I don’t take lightly to joshers. But real talk, I’ll ask around on my lunch break. Maybe if I get you a job I can force you to come here and do my work for me.

 **You:** Hell to the no, sir. If anything, you should be offering to do my work.

 **BRN:** Are we kidding, I’m not the one who needs the job to graduate college. I didn’t even go to college, because I’m an irresponsible adult.

 **You:** Well you said it, not me. For once it wasn’t me insulting you.

Glancing up at the time, you realize that time had flown quickly since the two of you had started your back and forth banter, and you decide to gather up your bag and set off towards your class. Though, that doesn’t mean that the conversation stops at all, as you decide to text whilst walking.

 **BRN:** Wow, you’re right. You’re such a bully to me, you know that?

 **You:** Maybe I enjoy it, huh?

 **BRN:** That’s very rude of you, ma’am. I’d advise you to stop the bullying before you break my fragile little boy heart.

 **You:** Nah, since when should I listen to you?

 **BRN:** Didn’t you hear, I’m the smartest man on Earth.

 **You:** Wow, for being the smartest man on Earth, you sure are stupid.

 **BRN:** Damn that’s cold. That burns real deep. Hey, so I had an awesome time last night, do you want to play minecraft again tonight?

 **You:** Sure, sounds like fun. I had an awesome time too, even though I couldn’t hear your beautiful voice at all.

 **BRN:** Trust me, you’re definitely the one with the most beautiful voice between the two of us. Listening to you talk was literally one of the most therapeutic things for some reason. Ah fuck, now I sound like the creepiest fuckin’ dude ever. I’m like ‘watch people from a New York alley’ strange.

You read the message that he had just sent, and a large blush came across your face, immediately turning your cheeks a shade of crimson. Looking up from your phone, you realize that you’d arrived at the door for your class, and upon jiggling the door handle, you find that the door is open. You walk in quietly, just in case the professor was holding tutorials or something of that sort, but after shutting the door you find that she’s not doing anything except sitting cross-legged on her desk with no shoes on playing on her 3DS. She looks over at you when you walk in, and you smile and give a small awkward wave and she smiles back at you, her teeth sparkling.

“Well, I guess the secrets out, this is what I do before class,” She says, laughing to herself as she looks back down at the screens. You walk up the stairs to the top row of desks before sitting down, and you manage to stutter out a nervous reply to her without messing up too much.

“I’m sorry, I could’ve waited out in the hall-”

“No, no! It’s perfectly fine, I’m just joking around with you. There’s never anyone that shows up to my class earlier than 5 minutes before, so I always just hang around doing this,” She says, her bright eyes shining as she focuses on the small screens.

“Ah. I’ve been here for about a half an hour and just decided to finally come over here. I was just sitting in the courtyard,” You say, pulling out your laptop and your textbook, along with notebook paper and a pencil.

“Oh, I’m always here at least an hour before class, if not even earlier. It’s more fun playing here, you can streetpass a shitload more people,” She tells you, smiling as she does. You laugh in agreement before sitting down and pulling out your phone.

 **You:** No, I assure you, that wasn’t creepy. Sorry for the delayed reply, I decided to go to class to see if my professor was there and it turns out she’s always here. It was strange to walk in on.

 **BRN:** Are you sure that wasn’t creepy as hell? Or too forward? Also, why was it weird, was she like, bangin’ a student or something?

You laugh and put an embarrassed hand over your mouth in order to stifle your laughs so that you wouldn’t disrupt whatever the teacher was so focused on at the moment.

 **You:** No, no, not too forward at all. I actually don’t get compliments often, so it feels nice to get some. Especially about something I’m so self conscious about. Also, no, that would be very very  awkward. She apparently just sits on her desk all morning until class playing on her 3DS until people begin to show up.

 **BRN:** How could you not? Your voice is literally a sparkle to my ears. Better than what I hear around here all day long. Bunch of idiots. Also, sounds like my kind of teacher.

 **You:** Oh hush.

Before you can read his reply, you hear your professors voice carry all the way back to you, and you look up, a puzzled look on your face.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do for next years experience portion of your degree program?” She asks, not looking up from the action that’s happening on her gaming device.

“Uh,” You hesitate, fumbling with your phone before it falls onto your textbook with an audible thud, “Yeah, I think I may have. I’ve been talking to this one guy and he says that he may be able to get me a job for his company in Austin. Says they need an extra pair of hands helping out to get videos out on time.”

“Oh, wow, that sounds incredible. Most people in this class probably won’t even leave the state, to be totally honest with you.”

“I hope I can get the job, I’ve always wanted to go to Austin.”

“Well, do good on this final assignment and you will absolutely get the job, I’ll guarantee it.”

“Oh, is that why you wanted us to bring our computers?” You question, picking up your phone to read the new notification while still listening to her reply.

“Yep.”

 **BRN:** I’m serious, it’s just that good.

 **You:** It’s just that good or your other co workers’ are so bad that it seems good?

 **BRN:** I mean, it really is that good, but my coworkers’ are also bad. Well, maybe I’d bang my boss. Maybe.

 **You:** Well that came way out of left field. Anyways, I was going to message you all throughout class, but I just found out that we’re starting our final major projects, so I should probably pay attention to that.

 **BRN:** Yeah, that sounds good, you do need to be a good student if you want to come out here and do all my work for me. I’ll message you what I find out at lunch.

 **You:** Alright, cool. I’ll message you after class ends.

 **BRN:** Already looking forward to it.

 **You:** Aww, how sweet. Also, in your dreams. I’m not doing any of your work.

 **BRN:** Damn, maybe I’ll just have to do yours then. Talk to you later.

With that, you closed your phone and opened your computer for the start of class.


	8. Finals- Beginning and End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Deanna for helping me get some bomb ideas!

Even though you knew that a final project was in your future for this class, somehow you still found yourself excited for what the criterion would be. Projects had never been the greatest things, especially not final projects, because if they were huge editing projects they were never what you would call “fun”, but rather something more tedious and annoying than anything else. Though, for some reason, you felt that this project would be different than the usual “cut some clips together and edit them” sort of thing.

Even after the clock had struck the hour signifying the start of class, a few students still trickled in after the hour anyway. It wasn’t that they were necessarily “late”, this was normal for this class, as the teacher never really minded or reprimanded them to any degree as she usually took awhile to begin the teaching anyways. Though, today there seemed to be fewer late students, and everyone seemed to be generally excited. Maybe the word of the project had spread fast. All around, everything seemed promising.

Once every student was sat in their seats, you watched as the teacher stood to the left hand side of her desk, rubbing her hands together slightly before leaning down to begin shoving the desk into the corner of the room. She did it easily, the task done in one simple, quick push, taking her rolling office with it as easily as she had performed the task. A few students in the room looked in her direction in confusion and said nothing, but they were clearly amused at the sudden change of the teachers normal laid-back actions. Everyone remained quiet as she pressed a simple button and the projector screen came gliding down at a slow pace, the projector itself booting up at the same time. It was rare for her to use the projector screen, let alone with her desk pushed out of the way. There was a faint ‘beep’ as the projector screen turned on, and the teacher cleared her throat at the same time.

“Alright,” she announced, addressing the entire class with a loud voice, “so today, we’re starting our final end of year projects!”

There were a few collective groans throughout the auditorium, and she laughed a breathy laugh before waving a hand in dismissal towards the complaining bunch of students.

“Oh, the sound of the collective complaints! I figured you guys would be happy, this is the final project that you have to complete! For most of you, this is the final project you will ever have to complete in order to get your degree in production and editing, as you will be moving on to the final phase of your degree program- the year long internship! Then it’s out into the work world with all of you.”

There were a few whoops and chants from the gathered crowd of students, but the majority still seemed to be unconvinced and unamused. The professor continued on anyways, refusing to acknowledge the other students who refused to show emotion towards the situation at hand.

“So, has anyone thought about their internship yet?” She asks loudly, her voice ringing throughout the room. A few heads nodded in response.

“A few places will require you to have a portfolio to aid them in seeing what skill set you can bring to their company. This final project will go into your degree portfolio as an official professional project.”

She paused to catch her breath and to scan her eyes over the students that were at near in front of her, some looking confused, and many looking nervous. She ran her eyes over them in a set pattern, taking in each and every one of their expressions before breathing deeply and continuing.

“Though, it wouldn’t be quite as professional of a project without a professional looking over it and judging it, right?”

The students that were already previously nervous began to shift nervously in their seats, clearly uncomfortable with the new announcement. One student in particular raised his hand up into the air, shaking his fingers in a nervous twitch as he held it high up in the air.

“We haven’t even taken a final, or even talked to any other professionals other than you. We clearly aren’t ready for this.” His voice comes out in a quick flurry of words, making the professor's eyes widen in shock.

“Trust me, this won’t be anything you aren’t prepared for.” You let out a relieved breath that you hadn’t even realized that you were holding up until this moment. It was a soothing relief to your lungs to begin the circulation of oxygen and carbon dioxide once again, and your brain begins to slowly relax with the steady in and out pattern of breath. With the steady clatter of her flat heels striking the cement floor, the professor walked towards the desk that had her computer sat on it, and with the small click of a button, a large video screen dawned the projector screen at the head of the class, and once your eyes focused, your jaw fell open in bewilderment.

“Class, I’d like you to meet the lovely men from Achievement Hunter! These men are all employed by a company titled ‘RoosterTeeth’ based out of downtown Austin, Texas. Now, I will allow their boss, Geoff Ramsey, to give you your final projects. Also, a word of warning to all of you, they can hear and see you right now.”

“Ah, yes, thank you. How’s it hangin’, college students!”

As you watched Geoff Ramsey at the front of the room, you felt your excitement continue to build up inside of you, your thoughts running laps in your mind, wearing you out quickly. In one swift movement, you grabbed your phone and quickly pulled up your text messaging and typed out a flurry of words to Wade.

 **You:** You’ll never guess what’s happening in my class right now.

As you eagerly hit send, up on the screen, Geoff continued to speak.

“Okay, so, I can tell just by looking at the lot of you that many of you are nervous right now. Plus I heard a little bit. Well, I’m just going to say to you now that you seriously have no reason to be nervous about this project. Seriously, I’m not kidding, we are probably the most laid back people ever.”

In the background, which you could tell was facing away from the tiny white IKEA couch and towards the Lads’ desks, you saw as Michael and Gavin began to subtly kick and nudge each other, their bodies moving very subtly at each contact. You could tell very clearly by the look on each man's face that something was clearly going on, as Gavin’s face began to turn reddish around his smile from trying not to laugh, and Michael’s face was growing the same shade of red around his scowl, clearly growing more and more angry at the Brits shenanigans.

After a few more seconds, a soft punch from Gavin directed at Michael’s groin set the Jersey man off, a yell of annoyance spilling from the man’s lips as he shoves his taller friend over with a large amount of force. All other men in the office that had previously been focused on the full room of students on the screen in front of them whipped their heads around in order to inspect the situation in front of them in which Gavin was flopping around on the floor with a plethora of ‘Gavin noises’ coming out of his mouth and Michael was staring down at him laughing loudly. In response, Jack began to laugh, shaking his head at the lack of professionalism from the two men, Ryan just watched with wide eyes, and Geoff lunged down to begin slapping Gavin while he was down on the ground and defenseless. You watched the scene in amusement, a large smile on your face. Though, you couldn’t help but notice that something was missing. Or, rather, someone.

Your eyes wandered, looking around the flurry of insanity that was unraveling in front of your eyes, in search of one particular person. Though, when you couldn’t seem to see him, your eyebrows knitted together in confusion and you pulled out your phone in order to check for any responses from Wade.

“What the _fuck_ is happening in here, good lord,” You hear the familiar voice and your confusion is wiped away quickly, and you go to turn off your phone screen to pay attention, but you stop yourself as your phone vibrates in alert to a new message from Wade.

 **Wade:** What, did someone blow up? Because that is a phenomenon.

You laugh to yourself and begin to type out a response, smiling fondly as you do.

“Well, we’re telling the university class about their final assignments,” Geoff states, filling Ray in from what he missed.

“Ah, well that makes sense. Seems that they’re all very interested,” Ray pauses, then continues with a smug voice saying “save for the girl in the back that’s on her phone, that is.”

You freeze, all the color draining from your face, dropping your phone on top of your notebook with a muffled clatter as you look up at the screen with wide eyes and a stunned expression. As soon as you look up at the screen, you find yourself holding direct eye contact with none other than Ray Narvaez Jr. himself and all the color returning to your face rapidly, turning your cheeks a burning red. You continue to hold the eye contact, neither of you breaking it by moving or looking away. The other guys laugh around him, all joking about the encounter, as do the members of your class, and whilst everyone was busy talking and joking amongst themselves, they miss the subtle wink that Ray gives you that makes fire ignite beneath your skin. It’s only once Geoff begins to continue the description of the assignment from where he left off that the two of you break the eye contact, Ray looking down at Gavin who was attempting to get up off the floor and you quickly reaching for your phone on your desk.

“Anyways, within the next hour, each of you will receive all six of the raw recordings from each of us and the audio tracks, and you will be expected to edit them as seamlessly as possible. The best one will be uploaded to our channel with full credits and kudos going to you, and trust me, we will make sure that people know,” Geoff says, his eyes grazing over all the students sat in the auditorium.

After gathering the information that Geoff had just shared, you looked down at your phone that was clutched in your hands, unlocking it quickly before typing out a message to Wade.

 **You:** Oh my GOD, we’re getting our year end projects from ACHIEVEMENT HUNTER!

Quickly hitting send, you begin to type out another message.

 **You:** And THEN Ray Narvaez Jr. HIMSELF called me out for being on my phone. Plus, then he winked at me. WINKED. Do you understand what this means??!?!

You place your phone down slowly, looking back up at the screen as Geoff rambles off a small list of general guidelines.

“It’s all basic stuff,” Geoff says, using his hands to illustrate as he speaks, “just don’t spoil anything on the site or anything like that. Don’t leak the clips- just dont be an idiot. That’s basically it.” You watch with interest as the group attempt to look professional, trying not to look too immature by play fighting and yelling obscenities as they usually did. You heard the familiar chime of the iPhone message notification and you moved your gaze in order to look directly at Ray, who was now digging in his purple hoodie pocket in order to pull out his phone. He flicks the screen once and taps a few times for a passcode, then quickly clicks on his new messages. Though, after you watch his eyes graze over the messages, you see his eyes widen drastically, doing a double take in order to re-read the message that he had just received.

The other men in the room seemed to pay no mind to him, save for Gavin, who now had the biggest smirk on his face ever. Within seconds, Gavin was jumping all over Ray, scrambling in order to read his message while teasing him at the same time.

“ _Ooh, X-Ray, is that your girlfriend?_ ” Gavin sing songs, the widest grin covering his face. The other men then begin to take notice, staring at Ray’s now blushing face.

“Nope, it’s actually Queen Elizabeth. She says she wants you to go back from whence you came,” Ray deadpans, deflecting with comedy in hopes of getting the other men off of his back. It appears to have worked as the other achievement hunters begin laughing while Gavin defends that he’s not even from London. After clearing his throat and regaining his breath, Geoff finishes his speech of instructions for the speech.

“Now, if it’s alright with your professor, I think that you guys are done for the day. There’s not much you can do here, and it’ll take us a little while to get you guys those files. We’ll have to have Ryan the tech guy figure it out for us.”

You see Ryan shake his head and mutter a ‘god-dammit’ under his breath before walking over to his desk to take a drink from his diet coke can. You watch your professor take the stage at the front of the room, clapping her hands together in order to get the attention of everyone in the class. With a few words, she dismisses the class and says a lovely goodbye to the men, who bid their own unique farewell while telling the class that they will be given each of the achievement hunters’ contact info as well in case if anyone needed help. Before Jack steps forward to shut the computer screen, your gaze wanders back over to Ray who has his eyes focused on you. You jerk your gaze away, and he does the same, the both of you squinting your eyes in embarrassment. Then, as Jack quickly closes the computer, ending the call, your phone vibrates on your desk as you begin to pack your things.

 **Wade** : I just couldn’t possibly ignore the stunning beauty that radiated through the screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh don't worry, it wont go the same way you think it will.


	9. The Stress of the Working Mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowie, another chapter finally! Though, this time, I'm finally on a set schedule, so this will be more consistent! Alright, so this story has been fully planned out to completion, and will end up being 18-19 chapters plus an epilogue. 
> 
> I'll post my writing schedule at the end. Enjoy!

You could’ve sworn that this is what it felt like to be on drugs.

The room spun around you, the computer screen in front of you seemed to be morphing into an endless pattern of colors which spun in spirals and all other sorts of shapes that could have only been described as something caused by a strong hallucinogenic.

You could’ve sworn that computers weren’t supposed to do that.

**Moto-Cop:** No, they aren’t supposed to do that (y/n).

As you heard the ding of the new message through Skype, you turned your head to glance over at it, reading it before looking away. Apparently, you had narrated your thoughts aloud without even realizing it.

“Fight me, asshole. Maybe this computer is a special edition and it is supposed to do that. Don’t be rude to it,” You say, speaking into your mic as you continue to stare at your screen. Still without looking away, you reach over to grab a large swig of whatever heavily caffeinated thing was sitting on your desk, struggling to keep awake.

**Moto-Cop:** Hey, you can fight me, since I’m not the one being an idiot here.

You glance away from your editing to read his message on your monitor, then scoff disbelievingly at Wade, who’s Skype name un-ironically had more things to do with Ray Narvaez Jr. The two of you had decided to Skype together while you worked on your final project, but since his mic was beyond shitty he had decided to forego speaking, deciding that it would be less distracting for you for him to type out instead. Though, he could hear you as you spoke, and he never seemed to have any problem with it.

“I’ll fight you right now. Idiot my ass,” You grumble, playing around with a tag of audio that just didn’t want to match up with it’s correct spot.

**Moto-Cop:** Hah, I would totally fight you right now while you’re sleep deprived, it’d be the funniest shit ever. You’d probably just fall over without me even having to get anywhere near you. Then I’d laugh my ass off at your expense.

“Damn, that’s cold. How rude!”

**Moto-Cop:** Maybe it would help if, you know, you went to bed for once? How long have you been awake?

You read the message and groan, rolling your eyes. Honestly, you couldn’t really even remember how long it’d been since the last time you’d slept, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Uhh… something like 36 hours or something like that, I think.”

**Moto-Cop:** Holy shit, go to sleep. You know that your project isn’t due for like another five days, you don’t have to finish it all at the same time without sleep.

“Well yeah, I know it’s not due yet, I just have a habit of sleeping during a project and then it gets all fucked up and such. Inconsistency in editing. So it’s just best for me to do it all in one sitting, even if it’s hell.”

**Moto-Cop:** If it’s been that long, how fucked up of clips did those guys give you?

Reading as Wade referred back to the project that had been given to you by the guys at Achievement Hunter, your mind flashed back to the encounter the two of you had had over text that day, which to this day, nearly three days later, still hadn’t been addressed by either of you. Maybe it was nothing, maybe it was something. Either way, you doubt that he’d mention it. Didn’t mean that your mind didn’t run rampant constantly thinking about it.

“The clips are fine, just the audio is having a hard time matching up with them. Plus these recordings are _long_ for some reason. This episode is long as hell.”

**Moto-Cop:** Which show did they give you?

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

**Moto-Cop:** Yeah, stupid, that’s why I asked. People do that.

“So much bullying, I’m hurt,” You tell him, fake exasperated hurt in your voice, “But yeah, I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you that.”

It had only been three days since the project had been assigned, and only about two since you’d received all the clips from Ryan. They had added all the students on the Skype account that they’d created specifically for this project, and that was how they’d communicated if anyone had questions of needed additional files. In yours, the guys did talk about a few photos, so maybe you could manage to get Ryan to send those to you.

**Moto-Cop:** Well you can’t spoil anything that happens, but you can tell me. It’s not like that’s a huge spoiler. We know that Minecraft comes out every week, but we don’t know what happens in it.

Well, he did have a point.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right-”

**Moto-Cop:** I’m always right.

“-asshole. Fuck you, I’m more right than you are. To answer the original question, they gave me a Sunday Driving video. Of course, everyone’s clips are really long, because apparently this time they lost track of time. There’s nearly three and a half hours worth of footage that I’ve had to sift through, and by this point I’ve forgotten most of it.”

**Moto-Cop:** Those episodes are usually longer anyways, aren’t they?

“Yeah, usually from forty minutes to an hour.”

**Moto-Cop:** Well, then you don’t have to worry about it being longer than usual. Most of that will be trash footage where either a mic cut out or there’s just no one talking. In my experience editing, that’s how it is anyway.

“Yeah, I hope that’s how it is. I can always finish it and then ask Ryan if it’s okay lengthwise.”

**Moto-Cop:** You’re gonna ask Ryan about length? Hot.

You begin to laugh, the room spinning as you did so. Though, you couldn’t have cared less.

“I can ask him if he’ll judge yours for you, the man deals with small data all the time so I’m sure he’d have no struggle judging your small byte.”

**Moto-Cop:** Whoa, what the fuck (y/n)? Low blow, man.

You laugh, knowing that both of you know that everything was all in good fun. The two of you had gotten pretty familiar with each others humor, which led to even more hilarious and screwed up antics.

It was very clear that the two of you had become very close, very quickly.

“Hey, I’m just saying. I could ask him for you.”

**Moto-Cop:** Ha ha, screw off.

“Can’t, too busy editing.” You quip, somehow managing to keep an entirely straight face throughout that entire encounter.

**Moto-Cop:** Good lord.

You could practically hear the exasperated sigh and the eye roll that came with that reply and you laugh to yourself, not commenting on it. Your silence didn’t seem to hinder him in any way, as another message followed soon after.

**Moto-Cop:** I’m going to bed, you loser. You should do the same.

“What, you’re leaving this early?” You ask, not even bothering to look at the clock.

**Moto-Cop:** It’s five in the morning for me, (y/n).

You glance at the message, but then have to do a double take at that, then you look frantically at the clock on your desktop. Sure enough, it was early.

“Holy shit, don’t you work tomorrow?”

**Moto-Cop:** Yep.

“Why did you let me keep you up this late?” You question, your voice rising in exclamation.

**Moto-Cop:** Because I’ll be fine. I’m not even really going to bed, I’m just gonna go make food and lounge around like a lazy fuck. There’s no reason for me to go to bed for three hours. Worst case scenario, I sleep during work. That’s not as uncommon for me as you’d think.

“Don’t let me do that again, idiot. Go to bed!” You demand, suddenly feeling guilty that he had stayed up so late with you.

**Moto-Cop:** Don’t feel bad, it’s fine. If we weren’t talking this way we probably would’ve stayed up texting anyway. This way was more fun though, I got to hear your voice.

You feel heat rise to your cheeks, but you ignore it because you knew that he couldn’t see you.

“Yeah, lucky you, you get to hear my voice, but I don’t get to hear yours. Way to be.” You say monotonous and sarcastic.

**Moto-Cop:** Sorry, (y/n), but my voice is one from the gods, and I think you’d literally explode if you heard it. No one’s ever been able to handle it. Everyone at my work is actually dead, spoiler alert. It’s all me, baby. That much magic.

You scoff and roll your eyes before replying “Yeah, okay” in a mocking tone.

Before he can type out another message, you manage to ask a question first.

“If you’re not going to bed, why would you hang up?”

**Moto-Cop:** Because I’m hoping that that’ll make you get some sleep. You really need some.

“You know it doesn’t work that way.”

**Moto-Cop:** A man can hope.

“How naive.”

**Moto-Cop:** I’ll stay on call with you if you want, as much as I do want you to go to bed.

You hesitate before replying.

“I’d like that very much.”

**Moto-Cop:** Okay, I’ll do that then. I’m gonna go grab whatever food I can find in my fridge. I’ll be right back.

“Mmkay.”

He leaves, leaving you without conversation or a reason to think, and by the time he gets back five minutes later, you’re out like a light on your keyboard, drooling slightly onto your desk.

**Moto-Cop:** I’ll talk to you tomorrow when you wake up. Sleep well.

**XxXxXxX**

You awoke with a start to the sound of the Skype incoming call sound.

Usually, the shock would’ve caused your head to shoot up, but you were so exhausted that your head didn’t even move. As the sound continued, you pressed the hotkey shortcut on your keyboard to answer the call, expecting Wade and no one else. Though, the voice you heard made your head shoot up.

“Good afternoon!” Ryan’s voice rings through your headphones, very cheery. In the background, you hear loud voices, but you ignore them to focus on Ryan’s voice. “Er, where are you?” Ryan asks, and your head shoots up from your keyboard as you realize that you’d accepted a video call. You bring your face level with your webcam and smile as warmly as you can.

“Oh, hello there Ryan!” You greet, clearing the sleep from your throat with a cough.

“Were you sleeping on your desk?” He questions, a smile on his face.

“In true college fashion, yes I was indeed.” You answer, taking a swig of the now flat soda on your desk. You make a face of disgust, and Ryan laughs as you do.

“Are you taking any other classes other than the editing and production class?”

“No, why?”

“You didn’t stay up all night last night just working on the editing did you?” Ryan asks as he pushes his thin rimmed glasses up his nose. You sigh before responding with a small ‘yeah’, following that with a yawn. Ryan shakes his head and gives a breathy laugh.

“Why did you do that? It’s not due to us for another five days.”

“I like to do everything in one sitting so it’s all consistent and such,” You answer honestly.

“Ah, makes sense. Though, we did give you a rather large project. Your professor told us that you were very good with the software and editing in general.”

You scoff before replying back with a small “Yeah, right.”

“It’s true! That’s why we gave you Sunday Driving, it’s a rather large task. We gave the others Things to Do’s and all that. Those are small enough to tackle for beginners,” Ryan says honestly, a thoughtful look on his face.

“Well, you’re not wrong when you say it’s a larger project, fuck.” You respond, not even bothering to censor yourself. You watch their content and you know that the swear was not uncommon to any of them.

“Yeah, how’s that going for you? That’s kinda why I called, I wanted to make sure that you weren’t dead. Apparently it was a good choice to call,” Ryan tells you, laughing at the end.

“It’s going alright, don’t get me wrong, but I’m just worried about the length of the episode so far-”

“Did someone say length? I’m here.” You hear someone say from the back of the AH room. Ryan rolls his eyes and within seconds, Ray’s face is on the webcam (extremely close to the lens) and he’s staring you down.

“Well, you look like you haven’t slept at all.” Ray says, giving you a small head nod.

“That’s not a wrong assumption.” You answer, a smile creeping up onto your face. Your heart was skipping in your chest as your favorite AH member still stared at you on the screen. You ran your eyes over his face, tracing his jawline with your eyes. Eventually, the two of you locked eyes again, and he smiled before giving a brief wave and walking back to his desk off camera. You felt heat begin to rise to your cheeks, but you ignore it as Ryan begins to talk.

“Okay, that was sure something,” Ryan observes, and you nod in response. Then he continues on. “Anyways, that episode can be longer than most of the content we put out. We talk a lot in that, and people generally enjoy that. Apparently that's our version of a podcast or something. I don't see the appeal. How long is your cut so far?"

You glance up and switch windows on your laptop from Skype to Final Cut quickly, glancing at the number and reading it off to Ryan.

"About 42 minutes so far."

"Oh, yeah, that's fine. If I recall most of that footage is unusable, we had mic issues for a ton of it. Then part of it we did nothing. Why we did nothing I can't quite remember..." Ryan's voice trails off, leading to a moment of silence before he shrugs. "Anyway, yeah. That length is fine."

"Nice!" You hear Ray yell off screen, joining in at the appropriate time to joke about length again. You laugh once but then choose to ignore it for the sake of your face remaining a neutral color rather than beet red.

"Okay good, I don't really feel like going back to do it again," You say, your voice filled with exhaustion. You heard the noises in the background get louder, and then all of a sudden you had Geoff Ramsey yelling obscenities in your view.

"What's up assholes, who's ready for some fuckin' games?" Geoff yells out, but stops dead when he looks at Ryan's screen, which was directly at you. "Ryan that isn't your wife."

Ryan laughs before introducing you to his boss.

"No, this isn't my wife. This is one of the students from that class, she's the advanced one-"

"Oh shit, is that Sunday Driving?" Geoff asks, his voice squeaking to a high octave as he leaned in to get a closer view of your face. You wave shyly at him, more of a swift flick of your wrist rather than a bona-fide wave. Though, Geoff still took it as a greeting and smiled back at you.

"Geoff, damn, she has a name you know," Ryan complains, rolling his eyes.

"Does she, Ryan? What is it then?" Geoff demands in a jokingly challenging tone. Ryan shifted in his chair then looked at you before you just began to laugh. You were about to tell them your name, but you were interrupted as a scared Gavin ran past the screen, followed immediately by an angry Michael. They bickered between themselves, mostly quietly, so you decided that you could continue the conversation.

"The name's (y/n). Don't worry, I think I only told you it once-"

"Wait, _you're_ (y/n)?" You hear Michael ask, practically yelling in disbelief as he comes into view on screen. Your face turns up in confusion, and you stare at him for a moment before answering.

"Uhh... yes? Is that a bad thing or a good thing that you know me?" You question, voice cautious and unsure. You see Gavin begin to giggle in the background, and you see from the direction of his eyes that he was staring directly at Ray.

A sly grin appears on Michael’s face and he turns his head in the direction of Ray's desk.

"Oh, I'd say it's a good thing. Isn't it, Ray-"

"Shut the fuck up, Michael!" Ray calls out, and you laugh at the encounter between the men. You had always enjoyed their content on the website, and somehow it was even better in person. Or, as in person as you could be, anyway.

"Alright assholes, game time. Load up some GTA, there's a ton of filming we gotta do in that," Geoff says, clapping his hands once loudly before he began walking off towards his desk. He sat next to Ryan so it wasn't a long walk, and you could've sworn that you heard him sitting down. Ryan looked around the room before looking back at you, smiling as the two of you made eye contact.

"Alright, that was my queue to hang up. But, before I do, is there anything you need from me to help your project?"

You consider for a few moments before remembering the night before.

"Actually, yes! There are some photos you guys discuss in the episode, could I get those from you by any chance?" You ask, and Ryan nods instantly.

"Yeah, absolutely! Just message me the general subject of them, just because I don't remember, and I'll look for them. I'll email them to you."

You sigh and smile gratefully at the man through your computer screen.

"Thank you so much Ryan! I won't keep you from work, so I'll hang up now. I should be submitting my final finished project within the day." You say in closing, moving your mouse cursor over the 'End Call' button. Ryan smiles warmly one last time before he ends the call with a quick few words.

"Good luck on all this, (y/n). I mean it- it would be a pleasure to have you around this office."

Ryan hung up the call before he could see the deep red blooming on your cheeks.

**XxXxXxXxX**

After the call hadn't been eventful in the slightest. After Ryan had hung up, you'd went in and grabbed some random snacks before heading straight back to your desk to finish the project once and for all. It was hours of endless work and plenty of stress, but finally, half past 11 at night, you had finally finished the rather long episode of Sunday Driving, and you were currently just sat staring at the finished file which was ready to be sent off.

Your mouse cursor idly hovered the ‘Send’ button and your thoughts ran rampant through your head, ranging from the best case scenarios to the absolute worst. You heart was beating fast in your chest, and every time you thought to click the button, it only began to beat even faster which would only deter you more from sending the file.

Eventually, it just came down to counting down from ten in your head and then closing your eyes to click the button, and once the file had finally been sent off, you leaned back in your chair with your eyes closed, relief finally coming to you in waves. Sure, it was still very nerve wracking to know that you still had to receive a response on your project from the guys, but it was still a relief nonetheless to have the damn thing finished and out of your hands.

As you sat back in your chair breathing in and out slowly, you heard the chime of your phone indicating a new message. You grabbed for the phone which sat on your desk and flicked on the screen, but stopped dead once you read what it said.

**Wade:** We really need to talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I didn't forget about how we need to address the MAJOR EVENT from chapter 8. I'm just keeping all of you on edge.
> 
> I’ll be releasing these weekly, in order to keep people up to date on what’s coming out when and to keep me tethered to a deadline. I will release the schedule the day before the first day of the week.
> 
> Sunday the 21st- Bolder Behind the Screen
> 
> Tuesday the 23rd- New RVB AU
> 
> Wednesday the 24th- Bolder Behind the Screen
> 
> Thursday the 25th- Either New RVB AU or New GTA!OT6
> 
> Saturday the 27th- Anon Request: Angsty Micheoff
> 
> Bolder Behind the Screen will now be updated BI-WEEKLY until completion. Then, something will fill it’s place. If you have any requests as to what I can replace it with, message me and submit prompts through my inbox!


	10. The Nearly Heart-Breaking Discussion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, it's finally done, sorry for the delay. Also, it's shorter than average, but it's all mostly plot.

You stare at your phone in stunned silence, confusion and worry washing over you, consuming you fully rapidly as if it were a devastating tsunami. You tried to think of a way to respond, something to say in response, but you couldn’t think of anything that you could even say that wouldn’t come across as anxiety filled and panicky. Your mind raced and ran thousands of laps inside of you skull, a dull headache starting to form slowly. As your fingers began to attempt to type out a reply, another message came in before you could process and hit send.

**Wade:** It’s about before.

You stand up slowly and pad towards the couch, and you flop down with a groan and kick back to relax before diving into the inevitable conversation.

**You:** Okay, what about?

The response came quickly, setting a very fast pace for the conversation from the get-go.

**Wade:** I texted you before, and I kinda sent it without thinking clearly. You probably thought that it was strange because of the Achievement Hunter thing that was going on at your college…

**You:** Well, yeah, it was a little weird, considering that you talked about me as if you could see me.

**Wade:** Yeah, I know, and that’s what I’m trying to explain I guess? It’s kinda strange to explain. I wasn’t there or anything, I just had a lapse of judgement and worded some things wrong.

**You:** That’s not really what confuses me the most though.

You hit send quickly, setting your phone down in order to catch your breath that you hadn’t known had been restricted inside of your lungs. Even in the open air it felt as if breathing was nearly impossible, and you felt yourself panicking. Though, as your phone dinged, you seemed to calm down, air freely entering and exiting your lungs once more.

**Wade:** What is that? I know I have a ton of shit to explain.

You take a deep breath, inhaling through your mouth and letting it out slowly, already feeling your heartbeat accelerate faster than what was comfortable.

**You:** It was that you said that I was beautiful.

Quickly, you set your phone down next to you on your couch in order to free up both of your hands, which quickly shot up to your face in embarrassment. You use your fingers to massage your temples in an attempt to remedy your quickly worsening headache. Leaning back on your couch, you stare up at the ceiling, eyes tracing the patterns of the textured paint as you wait painfully long for a response. Finally, after what felt like years, a response came in and you hesitated before turning your phone on to read the message.

**Wade:** I don’t really have an explanation for that one. You had recently had a picture of yourself on your Skype and I just… you’re really gorgeous and I can’t help it, I’d been thinking it for so long, and I guess it just finally was said. Your eyes are stunning, you hair fits your face wonderfully, and just, everything about you captured my attention and held it hostage.

You read over the message once, then read over it again two or three more times before you could even process the words that he had just written out to you. Sure, you’d been called beautiful before, but never in that amount of depth. Even over text, you could tell that it meant something, that it wasn’t just some fluke to get in your pants like many of the other guys that existed.

Honestly, you also hadn’t thought of the fact that he would see it when you switched your profile picture from something dumb to one of your better pictures of yourself, simply because you knew that you’d be having conversations with the guys from Achievement Hunter, and you didn’t want to give off the immediate impression that you were not always as professional as others may want to think. Thinking back on it, you couldn’t imagine why it hadn’t gone through your mind that he would see it, but now that you were thinking about it, you found yourself very nervous and very self-conscious, especially because he now knew what you looked like while you hadn’t the slightest clue what he looked like.

After you hadn’t responded in a number of minutes, given that you were absorbed into your thoughts and rationalizations, you received a follow up text from Wade which seemed to be filled with nothing but embarrassment and remorse.

**Wade:** Okay, I’m really sorry I shouldn’t have dropped that on you like that, I feel really bad now because I’ve probably freaked you out beyond belief and that’s just not cool. I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place, because now I feel like I’ve breached your privacy since you possibly didn’t even think that I would see the picture and now I feel like shit about it… I shouldn’t have said anything at all. I’m so sorry. I could always just leave you alone, if that’s what you’d like.

You shook your head rapidly in denial before beginning to type furiously on your phone, your fingers tapping rapidly on the small screen.

**You:** No, I just… no, everything’s fine. I’m fine, you don’t have to be upset at yourself, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’ll admit, I hadn’t thought about the picture until you’d brought it up, but that was simply because I’d forgotten all about it. I’d just set it for professional purposes for my project and all. Nothing you said made me upset or offended me in any way. Actually, quite the opposite…

As your heart refused to let up with the rapid, body shaking beats, you decide to open up your twitter app on your phone just to see what other people were up to, hoping for nothing but a simple distraction for a few minutes at the least.

You scroll through your feed, favoriting several tweets about the newest Let's Play and a few that made you laugh before you saw Ray’s newest tweet, declaring that he’d be streaming in less than a half an hour, grinding out more achievements. In fact, based on the time stamp, he was starting in a few minutes. From what he wrote, it seemed that he was finally going to finish his perfection of GTA V, which you were looking forward to simply for the hilarity of some of the game added together with the hilarity of his commentary. You favorite the tweet quickly and retweet it with a few words of your own added before noticing that a new text from Wade had come in. Quickly, you flip to the message app with the tap of your finger and begin reading.

**Wade:** Are you sure? I can’t help but feel like I’ve done something that’s way out of line and I feel like shit for it.

Your reply comes quickly and easily, which then sets the rapid pace of the messaging once more.

**You:** I promise, you didn’t do anything wrong. As I said before, it was rather quite the opposite.

**Wade:** Alright, if you say so… What do you mean by quite the opposite? I mean, if I can ask that anyways.

**You:** Yeah, you can ask, don’t be so timid around me idiot, we’ve been close for awhile. You know you can ask whatever.

**Wade:** Wow, that’s rude. Anyways, yeah, what’d you mean by that?

You take a deep breath before thinking it over quickly before you begin to type.

**You:** It’s just that… well, it felt good to hear someone say that? I haven’t heard that in awhile where it actually sounded genuine and not a lying piece-of-shit attempt to get in my pants or something dumb like that. I don’t get it too often, and sometimes when I do, I just find it hard to believe them? I usually don’t, usually think that they’re lying or something like that.

You looked at the clock at top of your phone screen, and seeing that it was almost the top of the hour exactly, you decide to walk in to sit at your desk and quickly type in the address for Ray’s twitch, and you prepare yourself to wait around until he begins. You idly spin around in your chair while you wait on either the beginning of the stream or a new text to arrive on your phone, and you’re both pleased and nervous when it’s the text that arrives first. You reach for your phone on your desk and take a deep breath, mentally preparing yourself for whatever the text may hold, and flick open the messenger quickly.

**Wade:** I have a very hard time believing that no ones told you that in the past few minutes, that’s how much I believe that you deserve to be told that you’re absolutely stunning. Your personality is amazing, your jokes never fail to make me laugh, and there’s the absolutely amazing bonus that you’re beautiful in every way. That I mean honestly.

Your mouth falls agape as you feel your cheeks begin to flare, feeling like your skin had been set aflame by the amount of blood that was rushing to your cheeks. As you read the message over and over again, struggling to comprehend the words that were written so amazingly right in front of your eyes you hear Ray’s voice come through your speakers signifying that he’d begun his stream. For the moment, you couldn’t think of any way to respond to the message that Wade had sent you, so you place your phone down on your desk to watch Ray load up his Xbox in the hopes that idle dumb gameplay would set your nerves at ease.

As it turns out, you weren’t wrong, as nearly 45 minutes into the stream you were laughing with ease as you listened to Ray commentate his story mode adventure and as you read the chat which poked fun at the expense of Ray and his occasional fuck up in game. You’d completely forgotten the text that you had left with no response nearly an hour ago, as your nerves had put it out of your mind and he’d never sent a follow up text to alert you back to the scenario of which the two of you were discussing. Though, as you saw Ray pick up his phone from off of his desk as he awaited the loading of a mission, you were reminded of the text again and you quickly picked up your own device in order to type out a quick reply.

**You:** You really shouldn’t have a hard time believing such things. Myself on the other hand have a hard time believing that you don’t have someone constantly hitting on you, you definitely have an amazing personality that is capable of bringing me constant laughs, and from what I could hear of your voice from the occasional times that we’ve talked through your fucked up mic, you probably have quite the attractive face to go with that attractive voice of yours.

You quickly set the phone back down on your desk to watch as Ray begins the mission he’d been waiting on, but as soon as you look back at the screen you watch him pick up his phone once more, reading over something that had just shown up on his small screen. You watch in amusement as his eyes widen and he begins to stutter, apparently at a loss for words at whatever the person he was texting had just said.

His fingers constantly ghosted over the virtual keyboard, seeming to struggle to form a reasonable response to whatever had just been sent to him. His fingertips never touched the screen in order to form a reply, and the somewhat distressed look on his face reflected the troubles that he was having perfectly. You read through the swift moving chat, laughing at a lot of the jokes that his fans were making regarding the look on his face, and eventually, it appeared that Ray had just given up, truly unable to formulate a response, just choosing to place his phone back down on his desk in the interest of resuming his gameplay. He watched the chat idly as he drove to his destination on screen, his eyes constantly flicking back and forth before his face lit up as he saw a question that peaked his interest.

“Okay, so someone asked ‘So Ray, who’s been the person you’ve been texting so constantly throughout videos?’ Well, that’s actually a great question that I’m very willing to answer right now, maybe it’ll make the fanbase chill out with the speculations,” Ray smiles as he begins to think of how he wanted to word his description, eventually laughing under his breath as his smile widens further, seeming to finally have settled on the best description he could muster up.

“Okay, so I was online a little while ago while I was bored in my apartment, and I’d met this really hilarious girl online on the website I was on. We’d talked a bunch that night, and before she fell asleep from what’s most likely my boring idiocy, I’d given her my number and we’ve kinda been talking non-stop ever since,” He tells the chat fondly, his smile only growing wider as he talked about his online encounter. The chat was blowing up with flirtatious comments and sexual innuendos and you laughed as you read them all off, each one seeming to be funnier and funnier as they went on. You yourself couldn’t help but feel jealous for the girl that had somehow managed to get into contact with the handsome and stunning Ray Narvaez. Jr. Part of you wondered if she even knew that it was him, but you quickly stopped thinking as he began to talk once more.

“She’s absolutely amazing, she’s hilarious and she puts up with my stupid jokes, and she’s just… fantastic. I can’t even think of a better way to describe her,” Ray’s voice trails off as he looks at his chat once again, snorting at the innuendos that he read before he reached a genuine question that seemed to catch and hold his attention.

“No, that’s a good question. As far as I know, because I haven’t told her anything, she doesn’t have a clue who I am. I haven’t told her who I am, just because I’m more nervous that she’ll change of she knows that it’s me. I know that she’s a pretty big RT fan, and I’m just really worried that she’ll change how she is around and with me if she finds out. It’s probably a dumb worry, but I just can’t get myself to tell her. She’s just… she’s obviously too good for me, and part of me just doesn’t want her to realize that. That’s probably me just being an asshole, though. I’ll probably tell her someday, I just need to stop being so stupid and all that shit. Anyways, back to the game, what mission were we doing?” Ray finishes his speech and returns his attention back to the game, watching the cutscene that was playing in front of his eyes. the smile never left his face though, and it was so infectious that you found yourself smiling just as brightly.

Though, your attention is pulled away from Ray’s twitch stream as a message comes through your Skype, and you exit out of fullscreen as you flip over to the window. You see that the message had come in from Ryan, and your heart sped up to unreal speeds once more as your eyes scanned the message.

**Ryan Haywood:** Hey there (y/n), we got your finished project and I must say, I’m beyond impressed. We’re all very impressed and after talking it out, how’d you like to come down to Austin to discuss the summer internship?


	11. Disbelief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowza, hello everybody! It sure has been forever, hasn't it? What, like almost a year? That's fucking insane. Firstly, I'd like to say a HUGE thank you to everybody who's been reading and commenting throughout my absence and time away from writing. It's been truly amazing to read all of your comments and support, especially for this story, despite me being gone completely for awhile. My life has definitely changed since the last time I updated this story, some for the better and some for the worse, but I finally got back to feeling like I can write again! So here I am! AND I have an update for you! Hooray! So, i'll leave you to it. Happy reading!

As your eyes scanned the message, your jaw seemed to hit the floor. You made yourself read and re-read the message over and over again several times, attempting to confirm to yourself that what you just read was truly real. Though, no matter how many times you read over the message, you couldn’t seem to get it through your head that it actually _was_ real. After at least two minutes of being sat in stunned silence, the sound of Ray’s stream playing in the background, you finally brought yourself back to reality. Within seconds, your fingers were at the keyboard, typing a response as quickly as your fingers would allow.

 **You:** Are you kidding? I actually did well enough to be considered for the internship?

You hit the send button and lean back in your chair, waiting for Ryan to respond to you. As you sat in disbelief, your thoughts ran rampant throughout your head, each being told in different tones of confusion and disbelief. Ray was still talking in the background, going on about the mission he was currently doing, but you had stopped paying attention a while ago once Ryan’s message had come in. Within a few seconds, you heard the chime of your skype fill the room once again, and you eagerly turned your attention to the new message on the screen.

 **Ryan Haywood:** I can assure you that I’m definitely not kidding. All of us looked over your final work today, and we’re very confident that you've proved yourself worthy of coming down to meet with us in order to discuss the internship. You truly outdid yourself with that video, all of us agree that you did much better than any of us would have.

You release a breath of air, opening and closing your mouth as you try to formulate the words of your response in your brain. Once you find the right words, you begin typing out your response.

 **You:** That’s incredible to hear, thank you! I’d love to come down there and meet with you!

Ryan’s response comes almost immediately.

 **Ryan Haywood:** Awesome, I’m glad to hear it! Okay, so I’ve purchased your tickets already, and I’ve taken the time to talk to your production professor so that she knows that we’ve chosen you as our candidate. She told us that she’ll make sure to talk to your other professors to make sure that they know why you’re gone and so that they can excuse you from the classes that you’ll be missing.

 **You:** Sounds great! So, what’s our next step?

You ask the question eagerly, beyond excited to hear his response. You watch the screen as an icon shows up to show you that he’s typing, and you find yourself holding your breath for reasons unknown to yourself.

 **Ryan Haywood:** Well, I need to email you the tickets, but your flight leaves tomorrow morning fairly early your time. You’ll be getting into Austin pretty early, around the same time when we start working. Someone will come get you, if not all of us, when you land. Then, we’ll show you back to the office and we’ll discuss the internship and the kinds of things that you’ll be doing if you decide to take it.

As you finish reading the message, you let out a squeal of excitement and clap your hands together once. You can’t stop smiling as your thoughts run around all the things that are going to be happening for you within the next few days.

Before you can respond, Ryan replies with another message you hadn’t seen that he had been typing.

 **Ryan Haywood:** You’ll be staying in town until Sunday morning. I know that seems like more time than you need in the office, but mainly you’ll just be shadowing and seeing what we do around here. You’ll also get to do other things that you’d like to do, either around Austin or around the office if you’d like. Did you say that you’re a fan of our company?

You think about Ryan’s question for a moment, attempting to remember if you had ever told him about you being a fan before. You think intently for a few moments, and snap your fingers as you remember when you had told Ryan that you knew generally how your video should end up looking, seeing as you were a fan and you had watched that particular show before.

 **You:** Yep, I’m a fan. Have been for a few years now. Hopefully that doesn’t change anything?

You find yourself worrying about whether or not being a fan will change anything about this amazing opportunity, but Ryan’s swift response calms you down almost immediately.

 **Ryan Haywood:** No, of course that doesn’t change anything! I was just asking because you’re allowed to walk around the office and see whatever you’d like, and I was pretty sure that you’d said you were a fan before, so I was thinking that that’d be fun for you.

You smile a dazzling smile and laugh, thinking about how sweet it was that Ryan had remembered that you were a fan and thought about how this visit would be fun for you. You type out a response quickly, not wanting to keep him waiting while you sit thinking about the upcoming trip.

 **You:** Oh, that sounds awesome! I’ll definitely do that at some point. Though, I want to make sure I’m doing as much as I can for the 4 full days that i’ll be there.

You quickly think in your mind about how many days you’ll be there for, checking your math. It’s currently Tuesday night, which means that you’ll be arriving in Austin Wednesday morning. Then you’ll stay up until Sunday morning. You smile to yourself as you come to the conclusion that you had in fact done the math correctly. Your smile grows even wider as you think about the fact that all of that time will be spent at a company you had only ever fantasized about visiting in the past.

 **Ryan Haywood:** Oh, don’t worry about that, we won’t have too much for you to do since the internship hasn’t started officially yet. So, you’ll have a ton of time in order to do whatever you’d like to.

You put your fingers on the keyboard, starting to type out a response, but a new message interrupts you before you can finish.

 **Ryan Haywood:** I’m leaving the office soon, so I’m going to leave you to pack and get those tickets printed off. Alright, make sure you’re on time for your flight, check your bags, all that shit. I’ll email you tomorrow morning with where we’ll meet you after you get off your flight. Happy packing!

 **You:** Thanks, Ryan! I’ll see you tomorrow.

With that, you watch as he goes from ‘online’ to ‘offline’ quickly, putting an official end to the conversation. You sit for awhile, staring blankly at your screen with a smile on your face as you think about the upcoming trip. As you sit, you try to imagine all of the fun things that you’ll be able to do while in Austin. Not just while in Austin, either, but at your favorite company as well.

Next to you, sitting on your desk, your phone chimes, signifying that you had received the email Ryan sent containing your tickets for tomorrow’s flight. You pick up your phone and open the email with a tap of a finger, looking to see what time your flight leaves. Seeing that it leaves at 4:45 in the morning, you quickly stand up from your desk in order to set off in search of your suitcase. Though, as you go to set your phone down, you realize that there’s somebody who’d probably like to hear about the recent developments.

You open up messenger quickly and begin to type out a message to your new friend, detailing all of your excitement in one, rather long message. Though, as you read through it, you decide that it’s maybe a bit too much and settle on a shorter synopsis instead.

 **You:** Hey, so guess who just got a message from Achievement Hunter?

You put down your phone and walk off to your room, looking in the closet for your suitcase. Once you find the large black bag, you drag it out and set it on the bed, opening it up so that it’s ready for your clothes. Realizing that it’s all too quiet in your room, you walk out in search of your laptop, and you scoop up your phone in the process. You set down the computer on your dresser and begin to pull clothes out of your closet that you would need to bring for the time that you’d be spending in Austin, but the chime of your phone stops you before you get too far into it. You pick it up off the bed and read the message you had received.

 **Wade:** I’m guessing you?

You laugh and begin tapping out a response quickly.

 **You:** Ding ding ding! You guessed right! Ryan says I’m flying down there tomorrow morning to go and discuss the summer internship with them!

You send the message and throw your phone down on the bed, resuming your packing. In the background, you hear Ray pause the game and pick up the RedBull sitting on his desk, before saying something about how he got a text. You turn and watch as he takes a sip of his drink, opening his text, reading over it quickly before his eyes go wide and he spits out his drink all over his desk.

You laugh out loud, your voice echoing off the walls of your small apartment as you watch his reaction. Of all things you were expecting, it certainly wasn’t that. You cover your mouth in an attempt to muffle your laugh and calm yourself down, and eventually you were quiet once again. You watch as Ray attempts to wipe up the liquid that is now spilled all over his desk with a grimace on his face. You shake your head in amusement before going back to packing.

“Well, that was an unexpected text. Damn,” He says, his voice sounding slightly strained. You hear the ding of your phone and you walk over to it, picking it up and unlocking it quickly before your eyes scan the new message.

 **Wade:** That’s cool.

You frown, and your eyebrows knit together in confusion. He’s a fan, you figured that he’d be excited for you. Maybe not as excited as you are right now, but hey, anything’s better than just a simple ‘that’s cool’. You contemplate sending him a message asking if anything’s wrong, but you decide against it, deciding to make good use of your time by packing your suitcase instead. It doesn’t take too long, and you find yourself putting the final article of clothing in the bag at around 11:30. You sigh and run a hand through your hair, messing it up as you do. You look back over at the stream and see Ray still going strong with his playthrough of GTA, but you decide that it’s better for you to rest before your flight rather than to stay up and watch him finish playing. So, you shut your laptop and walk it over to your bedroom desk and plug it in, making sure that it’ll be good to go when you wake up in just a few hours to head off to the airport.

Walking into your bathroom, you quickly flick the light on and begin to brush your teeth, your mind wandering to all the activities you have in store for you for the next 4 days. You look in the mirror to find yourself smiling around your toothbrush, looking like quite the fool with toothpaste on the sides of your mouth because of it. Though, at the moment, you couldn’t care less about it, because you’re truly happy and excited for the first time in a long time.

You spit in the sink, washing it down and rinsing out our mouth with water from the faucet. Wiping your face with the towel hung on the rack, you flip the light off and walk out into the hallway, back towards your bedroom. You grab your phone off the bed and plug it in next to your bedside table before turning it on to set an alarm for only a few hours from now. Then, you throw back the covers and sink into your warm bed, accepting the warmth that envelops you as you as you tuck yourself in. Once settled into bed, you reach up to turn off your bedside lamp, and you turn over to face the wall your bed is sat against. As you sit there, waiting for sleep to take you away from reality, your mind wanders to Wade and how weird it had been that he hadn’t been excited for you. Or, if he had been excited, he hadn’t shown it very well.

Though, as you begin to think deeper into as of why he could’ve been acting that way, sleep comes and takes you away.

**XxXxXxXxX**

The early, early morning had gone off without a hitch. Everything had gone as smoothly as you could hope for; your alarm went off on time, the cab to the airport arrived on time, check in at the airport was smooth and swift, and the plane hadn’t been late taking off. Now, you were currently sat in your window seat of the airplane, staring out at the dark night sky just beyond the window. The entire flight you’ve been thinking about the things that you want to do, the things you want to see, the people you want to meet, and everything else that is possible to think about centering around your visit to Austin. As you stare out the window, you find yourself dozing off, sleep threatening to take over as the gentle buzz of the plane lulls you to sleep. Though, you sit up and shake your head in response, refusing to let yourself sleep due to a need to be as awake as possible when you meet your heroes.

After what felt like hours, you find yourself walking off the cramped plane, your back popping as you stretch for the first time in hours. You turn on your phone and flip to your email quickly, looking for Ryan’s message that details where they would be waiting for you. Seeing it immediately, you read it and smile.

 **Ryan Haywood:** We’ll be down the first stairs you encounter on your way out when you walk towards baggage claim. We’re excited to finally meet you!

You laugh and adjust the computer bag on your shoulder, setting off towards the stairs Ryan had talked about in his email. Within seconds, you found them, and you take a deep breath before beginning to walk down the steps. After a few moments, as you near the bottom, you see a group of 5 men all standing together, and you notice that there's a man missing. The 5 men have a neon sign with your name written on it in glitter glue held in one of their hands, and a warm, excited smile on each of their faces. You lock eyes with Geoff first, and he points you out to the others and you wave excitedly in response. A few seconds pass, and you find yourself stood in front of them, a huge smile on all of your faces. Geoff clears his throat and begins to speak the words that make your heart thud, and make your brain realize that this is all real and in fact not a dream.

“(Y/N), welcome to Austin!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you guys thought of the new chapter, I haven't wrote in like a year, so. Yeah.


	12. The Arrival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo! So this chapter is a little shorter than normal. mostly because I can't stand adding anymore to it because I hate how it's turning out. So I figured I'd just publish it and be done with it. So it's more filler than anything else, but next chapter it'll get a little more interesting. Sorry in advance if it sucks.
> 
> Also, just so you know, this takes place in their current office that they're in now, not 636. Just wanted to clear that up just in case there was any confusion.
> 
> I have a few other things I want to ask you guys, but i'll do it at the end.
> 
> Enjoy!

As the words left Geoff’s mouth and reached your ears, you could feel a large smile spread across your face, and it was so large that you could feel the cheeks begin to burn because of it.

“Thanks, Geoff,” You reply, “I’m excited to be here!”

“We’re excited to finally meet you, you’ve been the talk of the office recently even though we’ve never met,” Michael says, stepping forward with an outstretched hand. You take it without hesitation and give it a shake, and he smiles genuinely as he pulls his arm back. Next to him, you see Gavin grinning at you, so you turn to face him and give him a warm smile and a small wave. Immediately after, you shake Jack and Ryan’s hands, one after the other, before finally turning and giving Geoff the proper handshake he deserves for getting you out here to see them. Though, as you look around, you frown slightly, a question playing on your mind.

“Hey, where’s Ray?” You ask, noticing that your favorite member of the group was nowhere in sight. In response, you hear Michael chuckle, a smirk on his face, but you decide to ignore it, deeming it as unimportant.

“Oh, he called in today. He says he’s sick, but we all think he’s full of it,” Geoff replies, his tone mocking at the end. You let out a small huff of a laugh and you smile slightly, trying to hide your disappointment that he wasn’t here. Though, you pushed your disappointment down and smiled a genuine smile at the men stood in front of you, because even though one of them wasn’t here to greet you, there was still the 5 of them, and they were still important to you even if they weren’t your absolute favorites like Ray is. You and the 5 men sit in comfortable silence for a bit until Ryan claps his hands once to catch your attention before leading you to the baggage carousel where your bags would be.

Before you walked any further towards the baggage claim, Ryan dismissed the other 4 members, telling them to go retrieve the car so that it would be ready for when you had your bags in your possession. They seemed to not enjoy the idea, but after a few moments, each of them offer you a small wave and a smile before saying their brief goodbye’s and walking out towards the exit of the airport. You watch them for a moment as they walk away, but Ryan’s hand on your shoulder pulls you back to the task at hand, and the two of you set off for the carousel.

“So, (y/n), are you excited to be here?” Ryan asks politely, his tone warm and welcoming, but also genuinely interested.

You flash him a bright smile. “Yes! God, I can’t even tell you the amount of times I’ve thought about how cool it would be to be here with you guys, and how it would feel to get the chance to be involved in everything that you guys do day-to-day. Now, thanks to you guys, I can finally experience what it’s like, instead of just dreaming about it.”

Ryan laughs. “Well, I’m certainly glad that we could make that dream of yours come true! Now, you are aware that the internship isn’t _certain_ as of yet, right? We just wanted you to come down so we could see if you could make yourself fit in around here.” Your smile falters slightly, and Ryan quickly adds, “It’s not that we don’t think you’ll fit in! We like you already, and we think that you’ll make a great fit here with us, but we just want to make sure that you find that this is a place that you want to spend a whole year working. We just want you to be happy, and if we decide that you’ll be perfectly fine with us, then the internship is yours, no strings attached.”

You sigh as you let out a breath you hadn’t been aware that you had been holding. Your smile brightens once more as all of your previous doubts about attaining the position fade away, and you bring a hand up to slap Ryan’s shoulder playfully.

“Don’t scare me like that, you idiot! I was about to break down, thinking that you didn’t actually want my help!” You exclaim, laughing towards the end to make your statement seem like an exaggeration, even though you knew that it wasn’t far from the truth. Though, Ryan didn’t need to know that.

Ryan chuckles in response to your outburst, and he places a hand on your shoulder. “I didn’t mean to scare you, (y/n). I just wanted to make sure that you knew what our thought process was and how we’re going about this. Though, if I’m being honest,” Ryan says as the two of you come to a halt at the baggage carousel, his hand still firmly on your shoulder, “I don’t see any reason as to why you wouldn’t fit in around here. Not only is your work phenomenal, being an exact example of what we’re looking for editor wise, but your personality seems wonderful. I’m sure you’ll fit in just fine.” Ryan tells you fondly, dropping his hand from your shoulder. You smile warmly at him, attempting to show him how much you appreciated his honesty and his compliments, but the ringing of the carousel bell interrupted your thoughts. The two of you wait patiently for your bag to come around. Once you have it in your hands, the two of you walk out to the pick up line and you see Michael waiting beside a normal sedan, none of the others in sight.

“Where did the rest of them go?” You ask Michael as his eyes meet yours. “Did you finally kill them all?”

Michael laughs loudly, beginning to walk around to the driver's side of the vehicle. “Nope, killing is Rye-bread over here’s thing, not mine. I’m just the rage guy.” He answers, opening the door and getting in quickly. Ryan motions for you to take the passengers seat before he grabs your suitcase and begins loading it into the back of the car. You smile graciously at him before opening the door and sliding into the seat and buckling yourself in. Next to you, Michael starts the car and looks over at you, meeting your eyes before mirroring your large smile.

“If I’m being serious, though, the others all brought a different car. We didn’t want to all have to cram into one small space, so I brought my car and Geoff brought his. They all just wanted to be here to see you and welcome you once you arrived. They’ll all be back at the office when we get back there in about 20 minutes.”

“Ah, I see,” You respond, shifting your gaze to look out the window as Ryan slides into the car’s back seat. In a matter of moments, the three of you were off, music turned up and voices loud as you set off towards the office. As you stared out the window, a smile still plastered onto your face, you couldn’t help but wonder what adventures lie ahead.

XxXxXxXxX

“Watch your head,” Michael says as all of you begin to exit of the car, which was now parked right in front of the studio. You scoff, rolling your eyes at Michael as you swiftly stand up once outside of the vehicle.

“I know how a car works, Michael. I know there’s not enough headroom to stand up and have a party or anything, you dumbass,” You retort, your tone joking. Michael rolls his eyes back at you in response before slamming his driver’s side door shut and pressing the lock button on the keys.

“Well, not with that attitude you can’t,” Michael says, sarcasm dripping from his words.

“Ha, ha, very funny, Michael,” You respond back, you tone equally as sarcastic. Behind the both of you, Ryan chuckles. Each of you were walking towards the front door of the studio, you and Michael walking together in the lead, with Ryan following close behind. You had left your suitcase in Michael’s car as Ryan had suggested, telling you that Michael would be the one that would be able to take you to your hotel once the work day was finished.

As the 3 of you enter the building, you find yourself looking around at the surroundings, taking in the environment around you as if it was surreal. In a way, it was, as you still were experiencing that disbelief that you were _actually here_ and it wasn’t a dream this time. You continue to look around, eyes wide and smile huge, until a laugh pulls you from your daze. You bring your eyes to look forward, seeing Geoff approach you with a smile on his face.

“Like what you see, (y/n)?” Geoff questions with a smirk, and you feel a slight heat rise to your cheeks. You figure that you could admit to it, saying that yes indeed you enjoyed what you saw very much, or you could just deny it instead. Denying seemed to be the better option, and you let out a snort of indignation before waving Geoff off with your hand.

“Nah, I’m just looking around at what will be my purgatory for the next few days.”

“Oh, (y/n), I really hope you’ll find that this wont be purgatory at all,” Jack says, appearing from around the corner of a hallway that you hadn’t seen. “I hope that you’ll find that your time here will be nothing but fun filled and exciting!”

You smile at his genuine interest in making sure that you’ll have a good time while you investigate the office.

“I’m sure it’ll be fun, Jack. I have no doubts that i’ll enjoy my time here.”

“Great!” Geoff announces loudly, and you jerk your eyes over to look at him. He returns your eye contact seconds later, and you watch as he jerks his head in the direction of the hallway Jack had emerged from. You look around at the others first, and you begin walking behind Geoff as they all start walking in that direction as well. You follow each of the men down a small hallway before entering in a doorway on the left side of the hall. Inside, you see the plethora of desks and computer set ups that the people commonly known as the “B-team” use to do their editing and everything else that they’ve been assigned to do. Glancing around, you see a few of them sat at their desks, typing away at their computers with headphones in, paying no attention to the world around them. After glancing around for a few moments, you feel a tap on your shoulder, and you see Jack pointing towards another doorway that extends from the room you were currently standing in. You immediately begin walking towards it, and you feel a large smile form on your lips as you enter the room and look around.

Currently, you stand in the office of the main 6 Achievement Hunter men. Most of them were standing around the room talking to one another, but you could see Gavin sat at his desk scrolling through what appeared to be twitter from a distance. Though, before you had a chance to look further, Geoff was stood next to you, clapping a hand on your shoulder.

“Alright, (y/n), welcome to the office! I’m sure you already knew, but you’re currently stood in the main room that we work in. It’s not super exciting, just a bunch of desks and stuff. Plus, it’s a mess because there’s shit all over the floor. That’s normal, though.”

“Yeah, definitely normal,” Michael interjects, his face strangely serious. You smile at him though, and a second later he’s returning it fully.

“So, for the day, we have some recordings planned, so you’ll be able to just sit around and watch us do what we do. We don’t really have anything for you to do while you’re here, we just wanted to bring you in to see how you fit in around here. After we get done during the day, you’re allowed to go off and do whatever you’d like to around the studio. Or you can just go back to your hotel if you’re not feeling like going around and doing things.” Geoff tells you, and you nod in response, showing him that you’ve heard him clearly.

“Yeah, Ryan mentioned that you just wanted to see how I fit in with the crowd around here,” You say, and this time it’s Geoff’s turn to nod his head in repsonse. “I’ll probably hang around here and watch you guys do your thing during the day and i’ll see what there is to do after hours.”

“Sounds like a plan. Tonight, we’re having a little get together at a local bar just as a little mid-week celebration. All of us are going, including Ray as far as I know. We’ve had this planned for about a week or so. We like to take the time out to just go out and get away from work for awhile, y’know?” Geoff asks, and you nod in understanding. Briefly, your mind wanders to how cool it would be to go out with them and really see what life was like off camera, but you shut it down quickly, seeing as you would most likely need an invite to go with them. You suddenly fill with disappointment, and you try not to show it on your face, but they must have noticed, because seconds later Jack is speaking up.

“Of course, you’re welcome to join us, (y/n). That’s the whole reason why we flew you in as qucikly as we did, Ryan thought it would be a good idea to have you along with us to attend some after work antics that we have,” Jack tells you, and you feel your face light up.

“I’d love to go, if it’s not too much of an intrusion?” You say, uncertainty in your tone.

“Nah, you’re welcome to come with us, it’s not an intrusion at all,” Jack tells you with a warm smile. You return his smile and nod your head, communicating that you’ll be joining them tonight.

“Alright idiots, time to get to work!” Geoff yells, and you wander over to the small white couch, taking a seat and making yourself comfortable as they begin to set up for their first recording. It’s going to be a hell of an interesting day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully that wasn't too bad to read. Let me know what you thought or if you have any ideas on how it can be improved because I think it's trash.
> 
> Okay, a couple of things.
> 
> One, I started another fic awhile back, around Christmas, but I haven't posted it on here yet. I'm going to post it within the day of me posting this, and I highly encourage you guys to check it out because I believe that if it gets good enough feedback, I'll be publishing it (with the details and names changed of course), and i'd love to see what you think about it!
> 
> And two, I was curious if I have any until dawn fans that read this story? I've got a mighty good Josh/Reader brewing in my mind right now and I think if I have people who enjoy the series enough I may start writing it. I dunno.
> 
> So yeah, let me know on all of those things. Until next time!


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